Eftpos Australia, the country’s leading point-of-sale technology provider, has announced a partnership with distributed ledger technology (DLT) firm Hedera to conduct a micropayments proof-of-concept using an Australian dollar stablecoin.
Eftpos chief executive Stephen Benton described the collaboration with Hedera as part of a broader digital payments innovation strategy intended to modernize Australia’s payment sector.
The pilot aims to demonstrate how micropayments can be used to offer innovative payment solutions, such as “pay per page content or streaming services on a pay-per-second basis.”
The proof-of-concept will be powered by an Australian dollar stablecoin through Hedera’s consensus service.
Speaking to Cointelegraph, Robert Allen, an ecex at Eftpos and the deputy chair of Blockchain Australia, described the proof-of-concept as part of a diversification strategy the firm has been developing “over the last year or two.”
“Diversification for Eftpos means getting on the front foot in terms of the future, it’s about how innovation is flooding into the payments space, and how we can stay one step ahead of all of that,” Allen said.
Allen said that Eftpos sought to partner with Hedera a few months ago due to their “professionalism, enterprise-grade technology, and growing governance council.”
“You can’t really argue against a governing council that are actually part-owners of a company, [and] that includes Google, FIS, Boeing, Tata, Deutsche Telekom and the list goes on,” he added.
DLT micropayments to disrupt economy
Allen discussed some of the applications that the payments firm envisages for its stablecoin-powered micropayments system in the future, emphasizing opportunities for “pay-per-view on a page-by-page basis” and “getting behind paywalls and subscriptions.”
Looking forward, Allen predicts Eftpos will explore “realtime payment for streaming of content,” in addition to “subsidy payments [to consumers] for listening to or watching content in real-time.”
Allen also suggests that exploring DLT-powered micropayments will position Etpos to respond to innovations in the sphere of smart cities, driverless cars, and other innovations in the arena of automation.
