Business

Is EFTPOS still king?

With customers less likely than ever to carry cash, and adapting new payment methods, The Paper looks at the essentials required for new retailers.

New Zealander’s were quick adapters of cashless payments and ATM’s in the 1980’s, but will that technology give way to newer innovations – such as apple pay, google pay, and payment wallets.

Dunedin Business Consultant, Jonathan Young, says that even as options increase, it’s by no means time to say good-bye to the trust Eftpos machine.

“Over the last five years we’ve seen a raft of new payment methods, such as paywave, paypal etc. However, it’s still a very small percentage of New Zealand’s overall payment preference. EFTPOS and cash are still king with the country’s consumers.”

With add-ons such as Paywave, credit card facilities, and integration with Point of Sale systems (which some of us would still call a til), he says businesses need to consider carefully if those services are helping or hindering their profits.

“New Zealand business owners pay much more that their Aussie counterparts for Paywave – about 3% vs 1%. A small to medium business could lose sales if they don’t have EFTPOS, but they’re not likely to lose that sale by not having Paywave.”

We asked Ronald Nasa, technology manager for eftPOS Specialists, about these charges. He said that banks in New Zealand had been slow to catch up with the lower charges for contactless payments. He confirmed that banks were charging businesses for the ability to take these payments, and without passing these charges onto consumers, many businesses couldn’t justify the additional cost for a small convenience.