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Tag: mobile wallets

Cuscal begins national rediATM fleet refresh

Posted on by Uberbrand

A man using a rediATM

Next generation rediATMs offer extensive withdraw and self-service functionality

Sydney, 25 June 2014: End to end payments leader Cuscal has commenced of a national refresh of Cuscal-owned rediATM machines. The combined $17 million software and hardware upgrade, which will be completed by June 2015, will replace Cuscal’s existing fleet with 1,200 next generation rediATMs that will provide scheme participants and their cardholders with extensive future ready withdrawal and self-service functionality.

The new rediATM roll-out follows the recent transition of all Cuscal driven rediATMs to the Windows 7 operating system and the successful completion of a public pilot of other new rediATM software capabilities at select locations in Sydney.

“After approximately eight months of build, test and certification we are now ready to publicly roll-out our new ATM software and hardware,” said Adrian Lovney, General Manager: Product and Service, Cuscal.

Future ready capabilities already built into the new ATMs include Near Field Communication (NFC) readers for mobile payments, bar code readers, as well as cash and cheque deposit with real time credit.
Cuscal’s new software platform will also significantly advance the functionality of the new rediATMs and better represent rediATM scheme participants to their cardholders through a more personalised and tailored service.

“This phased approach will introduce new functionality such as favourite transactions, issuer branding and issuer advertising to our network and also sets the framework for many new features and enhancements to be built and deployed over coming years,” said Mr. Lovney. “As other networks show signs of consolidation, the new rediATM network will enable our members to provide an advanced withdrawal and self-service channel that puts them on a par with Australia’s bigger financial networks at a fraction of the investment required for an ATM network this size.”

This announcement also closely follows the news that Cuscal has formed an ATM access partnership UnionPay, China’s largest card scheme with over 4.2 billion cards on issue. UnionPay cardholders who visit Australia from April onwards are already able to draw cash from approximately 2,500 of the rediATM branded machines operated by Cuscal and the National Australia Bank.

Adopting a philosophy of partnering and never competing with clients, Cuscal is the ‘brand behind the brand’ to many organisations which require safe, innovative payment options for cost-effective transactional banking services.

About rediATM
The rediATM network is one of Australia’s largest ATM networks. With over 3,000 rediATMs across Australia, it partners with over 100 financial institutions including credit unions, building societies and banks.

The rediATM network provides direct charge free access to over 8 million Australian cardholders.

Cuscal launch first HCE mobile payment trial

Posted on by Uberbrand

BiscuitCuscal’s mobile contactless payment solution enables quick and seamless provisioning – an Australian first delivering tomorrow’s world today

Sydney, 27 March 2014: End-to-end payments leader Cuscal has today announced the launch of the first trial of a HCE (Host Card Emulation)-based mobile payment capability, for Visa cardholders, in Australia and the Asia-Pacific.

The future-ready solution has been developed by Cuscal in Sydney and when launched commercially, will provide Australian consumers with greater choice when it comes to making secure payments with their mobile phones.

The Cuscal HCE mobile payment solution effectively turns an NFC-enabled phone running the latest version of the Android KitKat mobile operating system into a contactless payment device. With confidential payments data1 stored in a secure cloud, it provides a strong level of security.

When commercially available, the solution will enable Visa cardholders whose cards are issued by one of Cuscal’s financial institution clients to use their mobile phone to make contactless payments via existing Visa payWave contactless point-of-sale terminals that are widely available in Australia. Sensitive payments data is stored in Cuscal’s secure cloud service which the mobile phone connects with via the cellular network.

A pilot team of Cuscal staff cardholders have begun testing the HCE capability over the last week. Following the successful completion of the trial, Cuscal aims to make the solution available to its Australian client base in the middle of this year as part of its broad suite of mobility services; either as a complete client-branded mobile application, or via an application programming interface (API).

This will allow Cuscal clients to offer innovative mobile payment solutions to their customers, while minimising upfront development costs by leveraging this secure and cost-effective solution.

Adrian Lovney, General Manager of Product & Service at Cuscal, said: “Cuscal’s HCE mobile payments solution is a shining example of Australian innovation delivering tomorrow’s world today. Getting payments inside phones has traditionally been difficult because of the need to coordinate multiple parties such as trusted service managers, handset manufacturers and telecommunication providers. The HCE approach simplifies this while maintaining the highest level of payment security for cardholders.

“A level of openness will be built into Cuscal’s foundation mobile application offering, so we can continue to develop the HCE mobile payment solution in line with partner demand and device innovation as well as ensure that it can be integrated with the New Payments Platform (NPP) when it is ready,” he said.

Stephen Karpin, Group Country Manager for Visa in Australia, New Zealand and South Pacific said: “Australia is again leading the charge in payments innovation and we are delighted to work with Cuscal on this trial to help make next generation commerce a reality. With 40% of face to face Visa transactions in Australia already taking place via the Visa payWave contactless technology, it is important to develop the infrastructure to deliver secure mobile payments to the consumer.”

Jason Murray, General Manager Products & Marketing, CUA, said: “It’s exciting that our key payments partner is developing cutting edge mobile payments infrastructure, which we at CUA will be able to leverage for the benefit of our customers in the future.”
Brian Parker, Cuscal’s Chief Information Officer, was the first person to perform a live HCE-based Visa payWave transaction using the new solution with the purchase of two packets of Tim Tams at a 7 Eleven in Sydney’s CBD on 17 March 2014.

Mr. Parker says Google’s Android KitKat operating system, combined with the security of Cuscal’s cloud service and Visa’s network, will provide clients with the highest level of assurance around security whilst being able to access future mobile payments technology and reducing the impact of upfront development costs.

“Increasingly, NFC technology is being developed in the cloud and maintained by trusted technology providers; this is the future of payments,” said Mr. Parker. “Importantly this solution is provisioned securely with multiple layers of protection built-in.”

“Cuscal’s client-branded mobile payments solution, incorporating HCE, will be refreshed and updated on a continual basis to accommodate new functionality in line with device evolution, industry innovation, new payment channels, market demand and innovation within our own ATM, payments and switching environment. We also plan to make HCE payments capability available to our clients via an API.”

Additional points:

  1. The Cuscal-Visa HCE mobile payments capability must first be downloaded by the Visa cardholder to a compatible Google Android device (Nexus 5, Nexus 7, and newer HTC and Samsung smartphones, among others).
  2. Recent research from Telsyte shows that of the 15 million smartphone users in Australia at the end of 2013, Android leads the way, with slightly over 50 percent of the market.
  3. The customer can then wave their mobile phone over secure, contactless point-of-sale terminals in order to make payments and should look out for the contactless symbol at the payment terminal.
    The application and phone pass a series of messages between the phone and Cuscal’s servers, either authorising or declining the transaction.
  4. Like others processed by Cuscal, these transactions are protected by Cuscal’s Vigil fraud bureau service, an industry-leading fraud prevention and protection suite, which has more than two million cards under management.

1 Such as encryption keys, card numbers or PINs.