Eftpos customers warned of potential New Year’s Eve chaos
By David Swan
Customers of Australia’s major banks are being urged to manually update their mobile wallets to avoid a looming technical issue that may cause payments chaos on New Year’s Eve.
An automatic update is currently being rolled out to the 19.1 million Eftpos cards on mobile wallets, including Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay, to ensure they’ll be able to continue to make payments from January 1, 2025.
However, about 60,000 of those cards have a token expiry date of December 31 and will not be automatically updated, sparking concerns that cardholders will be unable to make payments from January 1 onwards. Such a scenario could see customers potentially unable to pay for a round of drinks on New Year’s Eve, for example, or a taxi home.
Customers of Australia’s major banks are being urged to manually update their mobile wallets in order to avoid a looming technical issue that may cause payments chaos on New Year’s eve.Credit: iStock
The issue has drawn comparisons to the infamous Y2K bug, albeit at a much smaller scale. That issue, also known as the “Millennium Bug”, was predicted to wreak havoc on computer systems globally but was largely avoided in part because of pre-emptive action and upgrades.
The bank update only applies to customers who have added a debit card to their mobile wallet before July 2023; have turned on the option to send transactions via Eftpos; and use an Eftpos-only debit card.
Lynn Kraus, CEO of Australian Payments Plus, apologised for the issue and urged affected customers to apply the update themselves by removing and re-adding their card to their mobile wallet.
Lynn Kraus, CEO of Australian Payments Plus.Credit: Louie Douvis
“Even though this could impact only a minority of consumers with Eftpos debit cards in their mobile wallet, we are acting now out of an abundance of caution as it is an extremely busy time of year for payments, and for those who won’t be able to complete a payment, it will matter,” she said.
“On behalf of Australian Payments Plus I apologise to anyone who might be impacted by this.”
Kraus said that card issuers will be contacting potentially impacted customers directly, and that no update is required for those using a physical debit card.
Australian Payments Plus was formed in 2022 through a tie-up between three domestic payment providers: BPAY, Eftpos and NPP Australia.
Anna Bligh, chief executive of the Australian Banking Association, said the issue should be a “quick fix” for customers.
“This update will only impact a small number of customers, and banks will be reaching out to those who need to take action,” she said.
“It’s a straightforward and quick fix, with affected customers simply needing to remove and re-add their card to their mobile wallet.”
The Business Briefing newsletter delivers major stories, exclusive coverage and expert opinion. Sign up to get it every weekday morning.