Weekend Money: Eftpos love affair shows no cooling-off

New Zealanders' love affair with paying by Eftpos continued last year, with another strong rise in the number of transactions handled through the system. Last year we made more than 401 million Eftpos transactions - meaning that on average every man, woman and child in the country pulled out their cards about 106 times over the year.

The figures were a 31 per cent increase on the 306 million Eftpos transactions recorded in 1997, says KPMG's annual survey of the banking industry. The increase may have something to do with the increased availability of Eftpos terminals. There is now one for every 50 of us, a much higher ratio than in Australia, where the figure is one in 90.

The average value of each Eftpos transaction was $44, down from $50 in 1997. The fall, says KPMG, is a sign that we are increasingly using our cards for smaller transactions which once would have been carried out by cash or cheque.

Paying by paper continued to decline, with cheques and paper deposits accounting for just under a quarter of all non-cash transactions last year.

The Internet is likely to be the next frontier for bank services. The ASB offshoot BankDirect allows customers to make transactions over the Net, and several other banks are about to launch services. The BNZ said this week it plans to be online by August or September.