CECS rules, standards and procedures govern the processing of EFTPOS payments, mobile payments, and the operation of ATMs. As innovation continues in the consumer electronic payments space, new payment instruments will be included.
A standard CECS transaction involves a number of parties, including the:
- Cardholder – the customer whose card is being used to make the payment in the transaction.
- Issuer – the financial institution that issues the card to the Cardholder.
- Merchant – the business or person with the EFTPOS machine who accepts the payment.
- Acquirer – the financial institution that has the business banking relationship with the Merchant.
- Switch Operator – the provider of the infrastructure (the ‘switch’ ) for sending messages between the various parties in the transaction (for CECS transactions, the switch operators are Paymark Limited and EFTPOS New Zealand Limited).
CECS transactions are settled and interchanged in the Settlement Before Interchange system (SBI), via BECS. This means Participants in CECS are either BECS Participants as well, or they have a BECS Participant who acts as their agent for processing transactions.
CECS, BECS and PCS Participants all use SBI to settle transactions and exchange payment information multiple times throughout each business day.