The nexxt tap step
Brisbane firm’s app could replace EFTPOS machines
THE next big leap in the tapand-pay revolution is quietly being masterminded inside a small Brisbane tech firm.
Webgate Technologies aims to start disrupting the fast-growing sector in 2022 with an innovative app that will render countertop EFTPOS terminals obsolete.
Called Nexxtap, it will allow consumers to simply tap their bank card or mobile phone directly on to the mobile phone of the business owner or one of their staff.
Webgate founder Yohan Lewis said the highly secure,
contactless service had already been welcomed by major credit cards and testing was currently underway with a leading Australian bank he declined to name.
The Milton-based company has been working on the project for more than 15 months and hopes to make the app available through Google Playstore this year.
“Businesses no longer need to rely on additional countertop hardware or dongles to process face-to-face transactions,’’ Mr Lewis said.
“Once the phone tap transaction is approved, a transaction receipt is immediately
emailed or SMS-ed from the merchant to the customer,” he said.
“Nexxtap will be an evolving application and we have a number of business groups that have shown interest in adopting it.”
Incorporating what he described as “military-type encryption,” Mr Lewis said the security built into the app is “way off the charts’’ and will still require the use of PINs for purchases over $100.
He said it would also provide business owners with more detailed statistical data on sales trends.
But it remains unclear how
much the service will cost merchants, who can currently pay up to $35 a month for each terminal now in use plus insurance. “We are working directly with the bank and will ensure pricing is kept competitive,’’ he said.
The breakthrough by Webgate, which launched as a payments provider 10 years ago, comes as the shift to a cashless society accelerates.
Paying by card eclipsed the use of cash five years ago in Australia and an estimated 80 per cent of consumers now use tap payments each week.
The latest available data shows annual card payments
soared 60 per cent to 10.5 billion in the four years to 2019.
That is tipped to reach nearly 15 billion by 2023, with the pandemic’s focus on contact-free payment likely to remain a fixture in society.
A 2020 Reserve Bank of Australia study found “the share of in-person payments made by tapping a debit or credit card on a card terminal increased to 50 per cent in 2019, up from 10 per cent in 2013’’.
The study found use of phones to tap on terminals had risen in the previous three years but was still only 5 per cent of in-person payments.