Eftpos set for major shut off

About 650 Eftpos terminals will be disconnected today because retailers failed to upgrade the machines to the latest requirements.
In all, 4000 terminals - including those that will be disconnected today - have not been upgraded to the new specifications despite numerous letters, phone calls and warnings from provider Paymark.
Over the next four weeks the remainder of those 4000 will be shut down throughout the country. Paymark is spacing the process out to allow last-minute upgrades.
Chief executive Simon Tong said 98 per cent of all terminals had been upgraded, which had been a "phenomenal effort by the retail community".
Paymark did not want to disconnect retailers' terminals, he said, but today had been the deadline for software upgrades and the company was going to "stick to its guns".
"The people I am talking about we have rung five times, we have sent them six letters, we have gone across the media to try and contact them, we have company-searched them, Googled them," he said. "You name it, we have tried it.
"Most of them [retailers] have made an effort and are up and running, 98 per cent of transactions are on compliant terminals and we are just trying to get these last few people across the line. We need to stick to our guns, if we back off that, it will annoy merchants who have upgraded."
The new Eftpos terminals will be able to read most international credit and debit cards that have chips embedded in them. The chips offer customers and retailers greater security when processing transactions.
Tong said in March that this facility would become important during the Rugby World Cup when retailers would be processing payments with cards from all over the world.
Yesterday, he was urging retailers with old machines to urgently upgrade their technology to avoid being reduced to receiving cash-only payments.
"The last thing we want to do is stop people trading. We have attempted to contact those who have not upgraded many times, including informing them of the exact week in which their terminal will cease to operate. If you continue to use an old terminal you can expect it to stop working very shortly."
Tong said the software in the old terminals dated back to 2004 and wasn't designed for the secure internet use that was "appropriate for today's challenges".
"In 2004, when those terminals and software was being put together, we weren't quite at that (broadband) point, most of it was still over a dial-up network. The new software enables the transactions that travel across internet connection in a secure fashion, which is crucially important and gives retailers a lot more choice as to how they want to connect.
"But to do that we have had to do a fair bit of work to make sure the transaction can safely pass between the terminal, back to us and to the banks. You have to make sure the network is secure. The old kit and the old software doesn't support that functionality."APN News & Media