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SBS Bank Signs Up To Independent ATM Network

SBS Bank customers now have access to their funds via a further 300 ATMs across New Zealand (20 of which are located in Southland) after SBS Bank signed up to the successful independent ATM network  run by Paymark, New Zealand ATM Service, and ATM Plus.

SBS Bank has been in discussions with Paymark and has recently completed testing of the network.  SBS Bank signed up to the independent network and launched the partnership on Friday 6 November, 2009.

Paymark CEO Simon Tong commends SBS Bank ’s sign on to the network.

“The Paymark team is encouraged by the fact that SBS Bank have chosen to give their customers access to the Independent ATM network. With a strong base of customers in small towns and rural communities across Southland we know that the ATMs will be very popular, providing fast easy access to cash and balance inquiries for SBS Bank customers.” he says.

First launched as a pilot in 2007, independent ATMs are leased to retailers by approved ATM providers NZATM and ATM Plus. Unlike a bank ATM, these machines are used solely for withdrawing cash and providing balance inquiries.  

Customers are charged a small fee for every transaction made. The payments are processed via Paymark, which is responsible for processing 75% of all electronic payments in New Zealand. In May, 2009 the ATM program went into full production with the support of the majority of the trading banks.

 About Paymark:

In 1989 three banks came together to form Electronic Transaction Services Limited. They had the vision of a national real time payment system. Through their commitment to the retail payments industry the company has developed what has arguably become the best EFTPOS system in the world.

EFTPOS appeared on the New Zealand retail scene in 1984, only five years after the country’s first Bank ATM (cash dispenser) was installed. New Zealand’s first EFTPOS system operated from a service station and a supermarket attached to a bank computer.

In March 1990 volumes through the network exceeded 1 million transactions a month.

In 1994 the company increased its computer processing power to accommodate volumes exceeding 10 Million transactions a month. In 1996 Bank of New Zealand joined the network and EFTPOS as a payment mechanism entered a tremendous growth phase.

In 1998 ETSL passed another milestone - as the 1 billionth EFTPOS transaction was processed. By the year 2000 EFTPOS was well and truly identified as a public utility. ETSL saw its 2 billionth transaction pass through the system in November 2000 and 7 billionth transaction in October 2008. The system, rebranded as the Paymark EFTPOS network, processes over 75% of all electronic transactions in New Zealand on behalf of more than 50 card issuers and acquirers. More than 73,000 merchants and 100,000 terminals are currently connected to the network that is now 3DES and EMV compliant.

The company offers services to merchants, card issuers and acquirers for EFTPOS, eCommerce, mCommerce and ATM payment and related transaction processing.

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Gordon Campbell: On John Key’s Agenda For The Nation

There seemed to be three main components to John Key’s speech:

a) tax cuts largely paid for by a hike in GST
b) mining in national parks and on conservation land, while building more roads.
c) giving firms easier access to the r&d from Crown Research Institutes, so that business can continue to get the taxpayer to pick up the tab for the research that keeps them competitive.

After all, corporate welfare is always such a blessed thing – its only social welfare that corrodes enterprise and ambition. More>>