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.