[LCA2019 Chat] [Brian May] Bus from airport

[Ewen McNeill]

On 2019-01-14 19:41, Brian May wrote:
> Steven Ellis <sellis at redhat.com> writes:
>> In addition a lot of places who do take PayWave don't take Apple/Google
>> payment.
> 
> I thought Apple/Google pay was implemented using PayWave???

I believe that's the "transport protocol".  But I think it's a different 
acquirer, "card number" range, etc, and thus I suspect some banks are 
selling it to merchants as an extra cost option.  (I believe paywave is 
*also* being sold to at least some merchants as an extra cost option, as 
I've definitely come across paywave capable *terminals* in New Zealand 
that the merchant has labelled "no paywave".)

Off the top of my head ANZ in New Zealand was fairly keen on Apple Pay 
starting 2018 (2017?), and I think Google Pay recently (late 2018?), but 
I'm not sure where the other NZ banks are in terms of roll out to 
merchants.  (I believe all of them can offer their merchants Paywave, 
but maybe not all of them are signed up with Apple / Google, etc.)

As for EFTPOS networks, my impression is that these are per-country / 
per "bank of merchant" networks, with telco-style interconnection deals. 
  So exactly what works with what is a bit up in the air depending on 
the exact combinations.

The (Visa owned?) Plus network:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plus_(interbank_network)

is one of those interbank networks, as is the (Mastercard owned) Cirrus 
network:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cirrus_(interbank_network)

A lot of ATMs are linked to both for maximum coverage.  But my 
impression is a lot of merchant EFTPOS terminals are at most linked to 
one of them (quite possibly that too is a "extra cost" item to 
merchants...).

Off the top of my head I don't think I've found anywhere in New Zealand 
that *won't* accept cash.  Although for a bunch of business types 
they're quite surprised to be offered cash these days (I routinely pay 
for smaller value items with cash).  By contrast in Sydney last year I 
did find at least one vendor that simply would not accept cash -- they 
were card only.
> Highlights my previous point that finding this sort of information can
> be difficult.

Definitely.  Perhaps people working in a bank have a better idea.  But 
even then it seems to be "it depends" (on authoriser bank / acquirer 
bank / common bank networks / merchant subscription choices / ...).

Ewen