SCU students in trial of payments system with no internet

Southern Cross University students were guinea pigs in a Reserve Bank trial of a digital payment system that works when the internet is down.

SCU students have taken part in a trial of digital currency which works offline.

Southern Cross University students have been the guinea pigs in a Reserve Bank trial of a resilient digital payments system that continues to work when the internet is down.

For eight weeks this year, a small group of students paid for a variety of goods and services on campus using smart cards loaded with what the Reserve Bank calls eAUD, or central bank digital currency.

At the Lismore campus students used the currency at the Quick Brown Fox cafe and the gym and pool complex. At the Gold Coast campus it was used at the health clinic and the Green Room cafe.

The eight week test was a pilot program for the eAUD and offline digital payments run with the Reserve Bank and ANZ bank. It was backed by SCU as well as RMIT University, whose students also took part in a trial.

The new currency is of growing importance as a back up option for everyday payments because 75 per cent of payments are now made online compared with 26 per cent in 2007 according to the Australian Banking Association, and there need to be other options for when online systems are down.

SCU director of financial services Richard Jones said he was delighted Southern Cross was selected as one of two participating universities in the pilot program. SCU has had recent experience with the sort of natural disaster which affects electronic payments systems.

“During the catastrophic floods of February and March last year, the NSW Northern Rivers region was without power for several days. This meant bank ATMs and vendors’ EFTPOS were unusable,” Mr Jones said.

The aim of the pilot programs at SCU and RMIT was to demonstrate how an organisation, such as university, can step in during an emergency to give people immediate financial support with an electronic currency that works offline.

In the SCU pilot, ten students were given smart cards loaded with eAUD to spend at the participating vendors. To make purchases students used the cards to tap a vendor’s smartphone which was loaded with a secure app to accept the payment while operating offline. Later the vendors were able to transfer the eAUD received in the transactions into regular currency.

The technology which was used respected individual privacy and also complied with regulatory requirements, including anti-money laundering rules.

Ayodhya Wathuge, an SCU PhD candidate in the Faculty of Business, Law and Arts, said she was thrilled to be part of the pilot.

“It was very easy to use eAUD to buy goods and services. As seamless as paying using my bank card or mobile phone but with the certainty that if and when the internet is down then transactions are still possible,” she said.

SCU carried out a research project in conjunction with the pilot. Darshana Sedera, professor of information systems worked with colleagues in the Faculty of Science and Engineering to look at the technology platforms, the level of trust by customers and vendors in the system, spending patterns and overall satisfaction.