2 FEBRUARY 2016

New Zealand First Demands EFTPOS Reform - Peters

Following the latest EFTPOS outage, New Zealand First is calling on the Reserve Bank to purchase EFTPOS processor, Paymark, which is reportedly on the market.

“Most people don’t realise that the clearing houses behind New Zealand’s electronic banking system are both overseas owned,” says New Zealand First Leader and Member of Parliament for Northland Rt Hon Winston Peters.

“In 2013, ANZ sold EFTPOS New Zealand to American giant Verifone for $70m, while overseas owned ANZ, ASB, BNZ and Westpac want to sell off Paymark.

“If the Reserve Bank is to meet a key purpose of its own Act, ‘promoting the maintenance of a sound and efficient financial system’, then Paymark must come into its ownership. They could access the Future Investment Fund to fund it too.

“How can we have a ‘sound or efficient financial system’ if the EFTPOS system crashes every two months? It also reveals just how vulnerable we are to domestic or foreign cyber terrorism.

“While EFTPOS NZ and Paymark compete tooth and nail we’ll keep getting these crashes. This is why we need legislative reform so that when one system goes down, the other automatically switches in to create a seamless system.

“It is also no coincidence that the United States Chamber of Commerce’s support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership hinges on getting rid of a requirement that financial data must be stored locally – a concern given this week’s supposed ‘signing’.

“We have to take back control of our financial system and Reserve Bank ownership of Paymark is a second step after KiwiBank,” Mr Peters said.

ENDS

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