Christmas shoppers frustrated by Eftpos breakdown

Shoppers at St Lukes mall in Auckland as the spending frenzy builds. Jeff Brass / Getty Images

Last minute Christmas shoppers have been frustrated by a breakdown in the Eftpos system this afternoon.

A partial failure on a processor affected thousands of terminals at locations nationwide. Paymark Eftpos said a "large number" of transactions were declined starting at 12.50pm.

Though it had initially said it would only take 20 minutes to rectify the fault, there were further problems restarting the system.

Queues grew at central Auckland ATM machines from shoppers trying to get cash instead.

The breakdown came after a surge in card payments pointed to a promising lead up to Christmas for retailers, according to Paymark.

The network reached its peak for the year at 12.13pm yesterday, with more than 83 transactions per second.

Total transactions on Thursday were just under the total for Christmas Eve in 2004, at 2.9 million, with 277,500 in the peak hour.

There have been more than 2 million transactions per day on each of the working days this week.

Paymark spokesperson Darryl Roots said the figures were a good sign for businesses and suggest a final shopping rush today and on Christmas Eve.

"There appears to be more momentum leading into Christmas this year when compared to previous years.

"Factors like Christmas falling on a Sunday and peoples' increased use of debit and credit cards contribute to the increase, but all the same the signs are positive for businesses," he said.

"Given levels throughout this week we could possibly top three million transactions on Christmas Eve."

John Albertson, chief executive of the New Zealand Retailers Association, agreed.

"As we anticipated New Zealanders seem to be leaving their Christmas shopping right up until the last minute.

"This latest information is very heartening and with the inclusion of the extra Saturday in the lead up to Christmas Day we are expecting a strong finish to the season."

The Paymark Eftpos network accounts for about 80 per cent of all electronic transactions in New Zealand.