IT Post: EFTPOS in New Zealand: Real Example of a Cashless Society

Supp bro!

Living in New Zealand  for 4 years has given me a lot of fantastic opportunity for hands-on experience of foreign culture and lifestyle. The lingo, food, do's and don'ts, social skills, underground cultures, backpacking culture and heaps more you name it; it is just simply "Been there, done that".

One of the coolest things in NZ is the EFTPOS. EFTPOS stands for Electronics Fund Transfer at Point of Sales, which means retail purchasing is made using electronic fund transfer from banking accounts. In other words, it is another term for debit card system. The best part of EFTPOS is you may use any ATM cards and the money is directly deducted from your saving accounts.

Pic courtesy of http://www.anz.co.nz

In NZ,  EFTPOS is WIDELY used (seriously WIDE, even the Sunday market adopts EFTPOS!). This high uses have made NZ practically a cashless society. No no, I'm not bluffing, my wallet was like very thin during those glorious days. Even I backpacked thousands of kilometers with only 20 bucks in my wallet! Convenience and practical indeed.

                                             Pic courtesy of  http://posm.com.au                Pic courtesy of http://www.kerikeriholidaypark.co.nz              

 Back in 2005, I arrived in foreign land where everything seemed new to me. The lady in the bank told me that my saving account came with EFTPOS utility. Oh wait, there were 2 things appeared confusing to me- first was What the hell is EFTPOS, and second, frankly it was difficult to decipher Kiwi accent for first timer as they seemed using bass throat voice during conversation. Thanks to my lipsync skills, it did help. Haha.

I did try using EFTPOS when buying my first groceries. It was fun indeed! It was just like skipping the ATM withdrawal part where you just transfer necessary amount from saving account to merchant's. Time saving and convenience. Using EFTPOS was contagious, it appeared that I used the facility every time I made retail purchases. From a first timer, this craziness had turned itself into insanity. I made EFTPOS purchase of a banana and a garlic. Now I understand why technological challenge descends to insanity at some point. That explains why nowadays teenagers are facing traumatic experience after getting responses from the keek video they have posted. Lol~!

 Pic courtesy of  http://www.guide2.co.nz   

 Pic courtesy of  http://resources0.news.com.au

My EFTPOS story did not end there. For 4 years I used my EFTPOS card for 95% of my purchases. Groceries, fast-food, bill payments, transportation fare, petrol and even accomodation fees! EFTPOS is acceptable for almost every place, even in Sunday market!

It is not difficult to use EFTPOS. The SOP is almost similar to credit card, but instead of put signature on the transaction bill, you have to key in your ATM PIN. Before the details being processed, the device will communicate with your account to ensure balance is sufficient for transactions. The amount is directly deducted from saving accounts. Now see, it is convenience isn't it?

In addition to that, EFTPOS can be used as ATM in some retail places. This means that I may withdraw some cash, coupled with few purchases in any time I need real money in hand. EFTPOS is so convinience that it makes New Zealand a cashless society. In Malaysia, it is much more similar to debit card. I never have used debit card in Malaysia since credit card services are much appealing with all the rewards and privileges, especially proven debt-paying records assist in loan approal. However, neither debit nor credit cards has penetrated Malaysian groceries market. Therefore, I hope this cashless service could establish wider coverage in Malaysian domestic market.

p/s: this is my EFTPOS card looks like.