Eftpos Australia joins Google, IBM, Nomura as an owner and member of the Hedera Governing Council

The Hedera Governing Council aims to spearhead the next generation of payments technology.

Eftpos chief Stephen Benton said the group joined the Hedera Governing Council after successful proofs of concept last year,

Eftpos Australia is joining the ranks of Google, IBM and Nomura as an owner and member of the Hedera Governing Council, which aims to spearhead the next generation of payments technology.

Eftpos - which operates Australia’s debit infrastructure and mobile payments app Beem It - becomes the 17th council member, it will be announced on Thursday. Other members include Boeing, Avery Dennison, Dentons, Deutsche Telekom, DLA Piper, FIS (WorldPay), Google, IBM, LG Electronics, Magalu, Nomura, Swirlds, Tata Communications, University College London, Wipro, and Zain Group.

The Hedera Hashgraph, a distributed ledger, is attempting to shake-up the payments landscape by operating a network to enable things like fast, low-cost micropayments and supply chain tracking, and can also integrate with the internet of things.

Eftpos is the only Australian member of the council and will run the Hedera technology and connection point, or so-called network node, in this market. The eftpos group has 19 local members including the big four banks and supermarket giants Coles and Woolworths, and is in the process of merging with BPAY and the real-time New Payments Platform.

Eftpos entrepreneur in residence Rob Allen said it had decided to join the Hedera council following a trial and due diligence of the technology last year.

“We want to get into a very informed, very front foot position where we can utilise these technologies for the good of Australians and Australian businesses,” he said.

Eftpos chief executive Stephen Benton said the technology could spur “entirely new ways” of conducting business.

“For example, in a world of fast paced technology change, low cost micropayments to pay for internet content or tiny payments for device to device transactions,” he added.

Mr Benton also highlighted the potential for micropayments in areas such as streaming, which could occur by the second, and paying for content such as articles or books by the page.

He said eftpos was looking at ways to make transactions more efficient and economical for businesses, while also investigating innovations that could add more value.

The participation by eftpos aligns with a strategic plan outlined in December to boost digital purchases and fraud protection online, while also piloting the use of QR codes for payments.

As part of an updated two-year blueprint, it is focusing on mobile wallets, e-commerce, digital identity, fintech and application programming interface access and QR code payments.

Mance Harmon, CEO and co-founder of Hedera Hashgraph, said eftpos’ addition to the governing council made sense given it was already processing transactions worth an average of more than $300m each day.

“We look forward to their collaboration with other council members and participants of the Hedera ecosystem to help make micropayments and other innovative financial models a reality for millions of consumers and billions of IOT (Internet of Things) devices.”

Eftpos has made a “notional purchase” of a stake in the Hedera platform and will participate in council meetings every two months, while committees meet every two weeks. Members of the council are contracted for two consecutive three-year terms.

But the hype around blockchain technology has hit financial markets in ebbs and flows, and some market participants remain cautious on its broader application.

Mr Allen said unlike other blockchains, Hashgraph had advantages including not storing data in the network and therefore being impossible to hack.

“We haven’t thought through these terms from a business or a commercial perspective because the infrastructure just hasn’t been there, and when the web was built in the 1990s and it specifically ruled out the payments layer,” he added.

Mr Allen noted the new platform could theoretically perform 100,000 transactions per second.