Electronic payments on the rise in Australia

Electronic payments on the rise in Australia
October 3, 2002

SYDNEY -- The number of ATMs in Australia has grown to more than 14,700 at at the end of June 2002, from 11,900 a year previously and a mere 8,800 in June 1998, according to the Australian Payments Clearing Association's (APCA) annual report.

The number of point-of-sale (POS) terminals grew to 402,000 from 362,000 over the year to June, up from 218,000 five years previously, the report said.

EFTPOS, credit and debit cards are beginning to replace checks and cash as the preferred means of payment among consumers. According to the report, Australians conduct more than 80 million credit card and 60 million EFT/POS transactions a day.

In an average month, shoppers rack up $9 billion of credit card debt, compared with $7.5 billion 12 months ago and $3.6 billion in 1998.

The report comes ahead of Reserve Bank reforms which are expected to make some credit card transactions more expensive, thus swinging consumers back to alternatives such as debit cards.

Analysis shows checks getting slowly less popular. The number of checks written daily is about 2.5 million, down 7 percent from last year. Overall, checks account for just under 20 per cent of total payments by number, with close to half done through EFT/POS and credit card payments.

Five years ago, checks accounted for 40 per cent of transactions, with 3.7 million written daily.

However, APCA chief executive Peter Smith said checks were still favored by many businesses as the easiest way to reconcile a payment amount with the reason for the payment.

"Until there is an electronic means of allowing businesses to include such a richness of information with the payment, checks will remain popular," he said.

The use of direct credits has boomed, especially among employers, who are increasingly paying wages and salaries directly into employees' accounts. More than $10 billion of such payments are made on an average business day, compared with $3.6 billion in 1998.

APCA's figures are collated using data from individual banks as well as the Reserve Bank research.

The report also reveals that the banks have given up on plans to introduce electronic check imaging, which would have eliminated the need for checks to be physically transferred daily between banks. Smith said this setback resulted from too many checks -– a daily average of 20,000 -- being flawed or showing irregularities.