Every week for the month of March, Viaduct will be giving away $100 worth of Telecom credit for a new customer signed up in that week.

What a great incentive to lease eftpos through Viaduct. (Aside from the great service, fantastic product range and 24/7 technical support!)

The winner from last week is Northcote Garage in Christchurch. Congratulations Ian!

If you need help with your eftpos solution and would like to be in to win a Telecom voucher, call one of our friendly sales team on 0800 484 238.

It’s always lovely to receive positive feedback from our customers - so thank you to the Bruce McLaren Trust for their thoughtful letter! We are glad to have provided you with great service. Nice work Lisa!

Those of you who bank with BNZ may have received a letter advising you that you will soon be issued with a microchip credit card to further increase your card security.

This may all sound quite technical, but it is infact quite simple. The small metal chip embedded in your credit card holds your cards data very securely. It has information encryption making it harder to copy and counterfeit. Eventually these chips will replace all magnetic stripes on cards, but for now they will have both so you can still use it in terminals that do not yet have the chip technology.

Viaduct have created some handy step-by-step instruction videos explaining how to process a transaction using a new chip credit card. You can view these on our website . Please feel free to call us on 0800 484 238 if you have any queries.

(5pm, Friday 5th Feb)

Dear Customers,

We are experiencing some issues with our Auckland 0800 number  - 0800 JET POS (538 767).

If you need technical assistance, please dial 0800 484 238 to be put through to our on call service technician.

We apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused.

The team at Viaduct

Hypercom is back in the New Zealand market and bring their familiar reliability with a couple of very interesting new products. The one that we believe will be most popular is the Hypercom T4230. It only requires power and GPRS coverage and you are good to go. With a connection charge of $12.95 per month and for the same cost as landline eftpos this is a very cost effective counter top solution. A dedicated eftpos line for $12.95 makes good sense.

The other product is the Hypercom M4230, a unique mobile terminal that offers GPRS connectivity in a compact design. The M4230 incorporates a removable, extra long-life battery for extended use between charges The M4230 can be re-charged by connecting the charger directly into the terminal or through an optional charging dock that also provides dial backup.

To find out more visit our website or give us a call on 0800 484 238.

Imagine this: You are driving past a billboard selling golf clubs, you wave your smartphone and you’re done. Your computer will order, pay and arrange for shipping in mere seconds. We are not there yet but we will be some time in the future. Payment technology is like any other. It is evolving and converging and as much as sometimes we would like for it to stand still it doesn’t.
Chip cards are an example of our evolving payment environment. We see more of them every day at the till and they are changing the rules. The bottom line is, there may be issues with your current eftpos machine that stop a transaction from being processed correctly. This becomes a problem for everyone and so we need to fix it. If you want cards to work and accept in your eftpos terminal you must comply with the rules set out by EMVco, a 3rd party regulatory body made up of MasterCard, Visa and Europay. They have your best interests at heart because they want to make sure you can process all transactions that come into our country irrespective of what country the card is from and these standards also protect us against fraud.

What is the benefit of upgrading
*Protect future revenue
*Future proofing your technology
*NZ compliance
*A more secure transaction
*If on broadband faster transaction processing times

You can check the compliance date for your terminal on our countdown here.

It is for these reasons that we recommend you lease your eftpos terminal so you are entitled to most upgrades free of charge. If you are not sure whether your terminal needs an upgrade give us a call on 0800 484 238.

As you may or may not be aware Viaduct continues to give a percentage of our eftpos leasing revenue to charity either directly or through eftpos support.  The staff have decided we should do more for Haiti as the devastation and the issues continue to grow.  We have started a fund with $500 and we will add $5 for every ten rolls of paper we sell till the end of February. So buy your consumables through us and you will be helping World Vision and the great work they are doing.

World Vision is now collecting funds as the international relief organisation mobilises its response to the powerful 7.3 magnitude earthquake in Haiti. Latest reports from World Vision staff in Haiti suggest the capital Port-Au-Prince has been devastated and that the need will be great. World Vision staff member Crystal Penner in Haiti said: “Many people are without shelter and thus water.”

“There are goods prepositioned in various locations across the country,” explained Crystal. “The challenge will be accessing those supplies and providing swift transport of the supplies to those in need, particularly since the airport has been damaged. World Vision Haiti is quite experienced in emergency response. It is a country vulnerable to hurricanes and flooding and so has conducted several responses.”

The recent commerce commission settlement and new card agreement allows for merchants to apply a surcharge with immediate effect under the following guidelines:

- the surcharge must bear a reasonable relationship to your costs in accepting VISA and MasterCard and can either be a flat fee or a percentage fee

- you must clearly display, close to the point of sale, your surcharge policy using display notices, signs or decals (at minimum Arial 10 point font) and you must disclose the surcharge at the point of sale prior to completing the transaction giving the customer the opportunity to cancel

- any surcharge must be processed as part of the total transaction and not collected separately

- you cannot describe the surcharge as a charge imposed by VISA or MasterCard or any financial institution

Please be aware that the commerce commission is watching the setting of these fees in the interest of the consumer as per their press release here.

Skimming is the unauthorized capture and transfer of payment data to another source, for fraudulent purposes. Skimmers modify Eftpos terminals or cash machines so they can acquire a customer’s card details and pin number, then use the information to withdraw money from their accounts.

Police estimate that A$50 million ($45 million) has been stolen by skimmers in Australia in the last 12 months, the Sydney Morning Herald reported Jan. 20.

Best practices and security guidelines for the prevention of skimming are based on successfully established countermeasures as identified by the merchant community and known criminal activity as observed and investigated by the payment industry and law enforcement. Make sure you train your staff in what to look for to see if your eftpos terminal has been tampered with. Regularly check your terminal and note the following:

- Make sure that none of the stickers or serial numbers have been removed or tampered with.
- Check the terminal connections/cables to see they have not been switched
- Be aware of additional, unfamiliar electronic equipment connected to the terminal, the cash register, or the network connections.
- Be cautious of unannounced service visits that ask you provide access to your terminal

If you suspect your terminal has been tampered with, do not process any transactions and contact your eftpos provider immediately. Viaduct can be contacted on 0800 484 238, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Welcome to 2010! We hope you all enjoyed a well deserved break and are ready for a fantastic year!

Viaduct has a full team back on board to service all your eftpos requirements. With offices in Wellington, Auckland and now Nelson, we are able to provide 24/7 support nationwide, with a great range of eftpos terminals and expert advice. Please contact our Wellington head office on 0800 484 238.

Some points of interest over the holiday period:
- In figures released by Paymark, a new record has been set for Christmas Eve shopping with 4.2 million Eftpos transactions totalling $226 million processed on Thursday 24th.
- Between midday and 1pm on December 24th, Paymark was handling 131 transactions per second.

We look forward to working with all of you over the coming months!

The team at Viaduct