MasterCard has announced that Australia will be the first country to pilot QkR™, a new queue-busting mobile payment application developed by MasterCard that lets movie goers at selected La Premiere Hoyts cinemas order food and drinks directly from their seats by using their smart phone.

The new QkR by MasterCard in-cinema smart ordering service will be piloted by the Commonwealth Bank at a number of Hoyts cinemas for several weeks from January. Guests of Hoyts’ luxurious La Premiere cinemas in Sydney who have an iPhone or Android handset will be able to buy food and drink from the comfort of their cinema seats through an application downloaded to their phone. Purchases are then delivered directly to their seat.

The Reserve Bank of Australia is considering tightening its current rules that permit merchant surcharging on Visa and MasterCard products.

The proposed variation will allow scheme rules to limit surcharges to a reasonable cost of acceptance, while still ensuring that merchants cannot be prevented from fully recovering their costs. The need for this change arises because in recent years some surcharging practices that potentially compromise price signals, such as surcharging in excess of card acceptance costs, have become more widespread. The Board believes that the proposed variation will improve the efficiency of the payments system by providing better price signals to cardholders.

Comments are due back by Feb 10, 2012.

The CommonwealthBank of Australia has launched an app for the iPhone called 'Kaching' that combines NFC, peer-to-peer payments, and social payments via Facebook. Good summary articles by NFC World, Hindustan Times, and The Australian.

On the web:

• Pygg Launches Twitter-based, Social Media Payments App in Australia - StartUpSmart
• Swiff Hopes to Become the 'Square" of Singapore and Malaysia - SGEntrepreneurs
• Square to Distribute Payment Swipe Device Through Wal-Mart - Businessweek
• Real World Feedback: How to Spend $100 With Google Wallet - Advertising Age
• In China, App Enables Discounted Mobile Payments at Vending Machines - Springwise
• Keeping Pace as Money Transmitters Proliferate - Portals and Rails
• New Zealand Carriers Create Cooperative Direct Carrier Billing Framework - MobilePaymentsToday.com

On the wires:

• Bank of America, Intuit to Offer Full Service Payroll to Small Businesses
• TSYS Purchases Portfolio from Vanguard Payment Systems

The Payment Systems Board of the Reserve Bank of Australia has published its Annual Report 2011. The report contains lots of interested data and graphs on payments behavior, interchange fees, merchant service fees, etc. in Australia.

On the wires:

• TSYS Expands Merchant Acquiring Presence With Acquisition of TermNet
• FIS Begins Processing New ELO Cards in Brazil
• Bill.com Rolls Out Official Integration with Sage Peachtree Software

On the web:

• FierceMobileContent: PayPal expects to process $2 billion in mobile payments in 2011
• TechCrunch: Jack Dorsey Shares Some Square Numbers
• Mashable: ING Direct Customers Can Now Pay Friends By Bumping Smartphones
• Wall Street Journal (SmartMoney):New Rules of the Credit Card Game
• Collections & Credit Risk: Discover To Pay Cardholders Referral Fee In Social-Media Push
• CRIENGLISH.com: Australian Payment Processor Will Start Accepting Unionpay Cards
• Times of India: Mobile payment system to gain steam in coming months
• Mobile Way to Pay: Will Retailers Use Tender Steering To Take Control Of Interchange?
• Portals and Rails: The Check's in the Mail, but it might be Fraudulent
• TechCrunch: Online Point Of Sale (POS) Systems Are The New Vogue

On the wires:

• Fees For Most Prepaid Cards Higher Than Basic Checking Accounts
• VeriFone and Hypercom Announce Agreement to Sell Hypercom’s US Payment Systems Business
• J.P. Morgan Treasury Services Ranks First in ACH Originations for 2010
• FIS Introduces New Terminated Originator Database for Risk Mitigation
• Viewpointe’s Services for Third-Party Senders Help Meet New NACHA Requirement
• Laru Corporation to Introduce ACH Vision RDFI at Payments 2011

On the web:

• Techworld: MasterCard Australia Outlines EMV-based Card Security Roadmap
• Portals and Rails: Atlanta and Boston Fed position paper promotes U.S. adoption of mobile payments
• The Asset Magazine: China Construction Bank and China UnionPay Offers Dual Currency Credit Card

The Mobile Money Exchange has a great visual tool that nicely illustrates the proliferation of mobile money deployments around the world.

This tool was originally developed by the GSMA Mobile Money for the Unbanked team (covering the countries under their remit) and has been extended to include all worldwide mobile money deployments.

On the wires:

• Reserve Bank of Australia on Payments System Issues Related to Multi-Function Cards
• TIO Network Surpasses 58,000 Physical Locations through MoneyGram Strategic Alliance
• Tyfone and Dexim Bring NFC Contactless Payments to the iPhone
• Arcos Dorados Selects VeriFone PAYware Merchant for Latin America McDonald’s Restaurants
• Digital Payment Technologies and Streetline Form Partnership

On the web:

• Rethink Wireless: Google May Get Tough On In-app Purchasing Too
• ReadWriteWeb: NFC in 2011: What's NFC, and Why Do I Care?
• Portals and Rails: Gains Made in Reducing Identity Theft, but Significant Fraud Losses Still Loom
• eMarketer: Consumers Continue Switch to Online Banking
• MIT Technology Review: Mobile Payments Try to Take Root in Afghanistan

A news story in today's Sydney Morning Herald caught my eye: "New software to beat credit card fraud". The story describes how National Australia Bank is rolling out new technology - called liquid encryption numbers (LEN) - developed at its Bank of New Zealand subsidiary to deal with card fraud.

Exploring a bit further, I found this BNZ page with more details about LEN. According to BNZ, "LEN updates the magnetic stripe security information on BNZ credit cards when a transaction is completed at a BNZ ATM. This technology allows us to automatically detect if your card has been copied or duplicated without your knowledge. " READ MORE »

In a speech titled "Competition and Regulation in the Card Payments Market" given Monday in Australia by Malcolm Edey, Assistant Governor (Financial System) of the Reserve Bank of Australia to the Cards and Payments Australasia 2010 Conference, Edey discusses the state of the Australian card payments market. He notes that because of how the card payment industry is structured, "competitive discipline on interchange fees has been weak" and then reviews the actions taken by the RBA - as a "reluctant regulator" - to deal with interchange fees.

The Australian Payments Clearing Association (APCA), the payments industry self- regulatory body, has released the latest fraud statistics for cheques, debit cards and credit and charge cards for the 12 months ending 30 June 2009. During the period Australia’s total rate of fraud (cheque and payment cards) has risen by 2 cents for every $1,000 of payments from 7 cents to 9 cents in every $1,000. READ MORE »

In an article titled "Bar Owner Stood Firm and Won Lower Fees", Keith Bradsher writes for the New York Times from Sydney, Australia about how The Merivale Group, Sydney’s largest operator of upscale restaurants and bars, successfully negotiated a lower merchant fee for acceptance of American Express cards. The tactic they used? In a word: Surcharging. The regulatory environment in Australia allows merchants to surcharge card fees to consumers.

In an article titled "In Australia, Curbs on Credit Card Fees Backfired", Keith Bradsher writes for the New York Times about the adjustments to payment card interchange fees made several years ago in Australia by the Reserve Bank of Australia.

Bradsher notes: "Now, as Congress debates how to rein in credit and debit card companies in the United States, Australia’s experience is being pointed to as an example of just how tricky that can be: for one thing, if regulators limit one fee or rate, banks are likely to find another way to keep revenue flowing."

The Payment Systems Board of the Reserve Bank of Australia has published its Annual Report 2009. The report contains lots of interested data and graphs on payments behavior, interchange fees, merchant service fees, etc. in Australia.

The Reserve Bank of Australia has announced that it is "is considering changes to the regulation of interchange fees in the EFTPOS system. The proposed change to EFTPOS interchange regulation is intended to ensure that competition between EFTPOS and scheme debit is conducted on a level playing field. The change does not imply that interchange fees in the different systems should be equal, only that they are subject to equivalent regulation."

In a media release today, the Reserve Bank of Australia's Payments System Board announced that at a recent meeting it had considered whether the conditions have been met for the removal of interchange regulation and "was not yet satisfied that such conditions have been met." The Board also said it had decided to defer consideration of any further reduction in interchange fees for the time being. READ MORE »

Neil posts on the Money.AU blog that the big four Australian banking groups are reviewing their overdraft fees "after their rival National Australia Bank (NAB) has decided to cease charging customers who end up overdrawing their bank accounts." The NAB said it will stop charging overdraft fees beginning October 1st.

PayPal Australia has announced "a new programme to help more organisations get online and take advantage of the Internet to open up new revenue streams. With e-commerce expected to continue to grow in the coming years, PayPal will launch a ‘Certified Developer and Partner Program’ to recruit developers and solution providers to help meet the growing demand for online payments outside of the retail sector. In addition, the company has made new tools and resources available to help organisations such as charities, foundations, schools and universities start accepting online payments and donations easily." READ MORE »

Philip Lowe, Assistant Governor (Financial System) at the Reserve Bank of Australia, spoke today at the Cards & Payments Australasia 2009 conference being held in Sydney, Australia. In his speech, he addressed "firstly, the recent reforms of the ATM system; secondly, the conclusions of last year’s review of the reforms to the card payment systems; and thirdly, the architecture and governance of Australia’s bilateral systems." In his discussion of the reforms, he comments, in particular, about online payments:

The Bank’s recent focus on online payments reflects a couple of considerations. One is that in many situations, consumers wishing to buy goods online have few payment choices other than to use a card issued by the international schemes. This lack of choice weakens competition, and is likely to become a bigger issue as online commerce continues to grow.

Another consideration is that fraud rates on online transactions appear to be steadily increasing. Almost half the fraud on credit cards occurs in situations where the merchant does not physically see the card, with the fraud rate increasing by around 50 per cent over the past year. If this trend were to continue, it could undermine consumer confidence in transacting online which would have obvious costs.

The Reserve Bank of Australia's Payments System Board has announced that it has "recently been considering PayPal’s and eBay’s rules that prohibit merchants from surcharging customers for the use of PayPal and from discouraging the use of PayPal." Following its review, the Board said it was not going to impose any new regulation now on PayPal's practices because of PayPal's relatively small size in the online market. READ MORE »

Telstra, National Australia Bank and Visa have reported on initial results from a three-month trial of mobile contactless payments at Melbourne’s Docklands. In the trial, consumers downloaded the NAB Visa credit card software application to their Telstra SIM remotely, and then used their mobile phone to purchase goods and services by waving their phone over a participating merchant’s Visa payWave enabled reader.

According to the companies, "the trial exceeded expectations, with a clear consumer demand emerging for contactless mobile payments and services during the trial, leading the three organisations to continue to explore opportunities in this area in the next few years." READ MORE »

Australian payments technology provider Distra has announced it has "entered into a strategic alliance with National Australia Bank (NAB) to develop and promote a range of new payments products and services. NAB, a licensee of Distra’s payments switching application since June 2007, will invest an undisclosed amount to take a minority stake in Distra." READ MORE »

The Australian Payments Clearing Association (APCA), the payments industry self- regulatory body in Australia, has released its latest fraud data for cheques, debit cards, credit and charge cards for the 12 month period ending 30 June 2008.

While Australia’s total rate of fraud remains low by global standards, the total rate of fraud (cheque and payment cards) has risen from 5.9 cents (2007) to 7.2 cents for every $1,000 of payments. Cheque fraud declined from 1.4 cents to 0.8 of a cent in every $1,000. Debit card fraud increased slightly from 7.1 cents to 7.4 cents in every $1,000. Credit and charge card fraud increased 30% from 38.6 cents to 50.2 cents in every $1,000 (5.02 basis points). READ MORE »

Visa has announced details of a five-year agenda for Australia to strengthen the security of the payments system. As part of the agenda, Visa will engage in discussions with Australian financial and merchant communities to set deadlines for the implementation of seven key security initiatives. Visa says that "all of the initiatives will provide greater protection against fraud for cardholders, merchants and financial institutions, while some will also help to reduce the time it takes to make an electronic transaction." READ MORE »

The Reserve Bank of Australia has announced the conclusions of its review of the payments system reforms undertaken by the Payments System Board. "In the Board’s view, the reforms have significantly improved competition in the Australian payments system. The reforms have liberalised access and removed restrictions on merchants that had weakened competition in the system. They have also increased transparency and have led to more appropriate price signals to consumers." READ MORE »

In an article titled "Rapt in plastic", Lesley Parker writes for the Sydney Morning Herald about the growth in so-called "scheme debit cards" among Australian consumers. The story notes an analyst report finding that use of the debit cards has grown from 14 per cent in June 2005 to about 23 per cent now while there has been a gradual but persistent fall in credit-card payments from about 28 per cent to about 26 per cent over that same period.

The Reserve Bank of Australia's Payments System Board has announced that it will be pursuing reforms of some PayPal policies: "Over recent months, the Board has received a number of comments on the no-surcharge and no-steering rules that apply to payments using the PayPal system as well as the mandated acceptance of PayPal on eBay’s auction site. Where no-surcharge and no-steering rules have existed in other systems, the Board has encouraged their removal on the grounds that these rules can diminish competition in the payments system. Consistent with this, the Bank will shortly be holding discussions with PayPal with a view to seeking the removal of these rules."

YALAMANCHILI International and ANZ have announced signing a 5 year agreement for YALAMANCHILI to provide prepaid processing services to ANZ in the Asia Pacific region. The first prepaid card program issued under this agreement is the ANZ Stadium Visa payWave card. The card will be the first reloadable, prepaid contactless card in Australia and will be launched at ANZ Stadium in Sydney for the Bledisloe Cup on 26 July, 2008. READ MORE »

ANZ and Visa have announced the launch of the first reloadable, prepaid contactless card in Australia. The new ANZ Stadium Visa payWave card will be launched at ANZ Stadium in Sydney where it will be offered initially to 2,000 ANZ Stadium members for use during the Bledisloe Cup on 26 July. READ MORE »