March 18 2008
Credit cards are so yesterday
A new online payment system from Netbanx aims to offer a more secure and equally credible alternative to credit cards.
The Neteller Group – parent group of payment processing company Netbanx - and Centricom Europe have signed an agreement to distribute a direct banking payment service POLi ((Pay OnLine) in Europe and is currently about to role out the system to a select bunch or retailers.
The POLi service replaces the need for a debit or credit card and instead pays via a customers direct/online banking service. Which means merchants are less likely to suffer fraud, transaction overheads are lower and there’s no need to suffer drop-out from 3D secure security checks, and additionally opens up the net to new customers who don’t have credit or debit cards.
In addition consumers can make payments to merchants anywhere in the world directly from their existing Internet banking service without disclosing their bank or credit card details.
According to reporting merchants in Australia who have implemented POLi, the service now accounts for an average of 23% of their total online payment transactions.
The new UK service will support transfers from all major UK high street banks and it joins successful POLi services already operating in Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa.
According to UK payment industry trade body APACS, in 2006, the most recent year surveyed, the average card transaction cost to merchants was GBP1.69, 15% of adults in the UK did not have access to cards for payment, and card-not-present (online) fraud increased by 16% to £212 million.
The POLi service helps solve these key problems: it allows people without cards to pay online and pay from their trusted internet banking service, and it significantly reduces fraud and repudiation risk for merchants, compared with other on-line payment types such credit and debit cards. And it enjoys high consumer confidence as no user information is captured or stored by the service.
In addition according to Netbanx, if your system already uses Netbanx then adding Poli involves ticking one additional box. So you can be up and running with it in seconds, plus there’s no download and everything is transparent for users.
This is the third new online payment service we have seen in the last few weeks, the others are eWise and ebillme, and it looks to be the best of the bunch. Anything that brings competition, stops consumers from having to remember yet more passwords and or carrying around irritating card readers, and that reduces card not present fraud has to be applauded; our only reservation is the ability to attract consumers. Will the ability to pay without disclosing your card details be enough of a carrot to get consumers to use the system?
