Industry Online banking Website www.polipayments.com Founded 2006 | Products Electronic commerce Headquarters Melbourne, Australia Type Privately held company | |
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POLi Payments Pty Ltd (formerly known as Centricom) is an online payments company based in Melbourne, Australia. It is the developer and provider of POLi, an online payment system that is used by merchants and consumers in Australia and New Zealand. POLi Payments has been acquired by SecurePay Holdings, a fully owned subsidiary of Australia Post.
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POLi enables consumers to pay for goods or services directly from a merchant's website without the need for a credit card, but by using a direct connection to the user's internet banking. A benefit is that the merchant receives an instant receipt, but there are security and other concerns. Consumers do not have to register to use POLi.
POLi Payments is used in Australia and New Zealand with its largest merchants being Jetstar, Virgin Australia, Air New Zealand, Sportsbet and Sportingbet. It has been implicated in enabling payments that could be used for illegal gambling.
Previous versions
POLi Version 3 is entirely in-browser,. This version was released in July 2012 and enabled payments on Macs and mobile devices; neither was possible on previous versions.
Version 2 is a .NET Framework ClickOnce application. This version is still operational in New Zealand Payments for several banks. This version to was built with security at the expense of user experience, as the process of downloading the .NET ClickOnce application is poor, and requires additional plugins for Firefox and Chrome.
POLi Version 1 was an ActiveX control. This version was used by some, but never gained traction due to security concerns with ActiveX. This version is no longer operational. Greg Day, a security analyst at McAfee stated "Using ActiveX for online payments is the kind of thing that would make me run a mile. [It] is probably the most used route for hackers to get in ... and steal personal information.". Since 2008 the system has been operating on the .NET technology platform. This still gives rise to possible security breaches via downloading untrusted software, and the possible infiltration of malware.
Concerns
Although POLi Payments stresses that security is a high priority for POLi, concerns remain regarding exposing the user's banking credentials to POLi, and liability for fraudulent transactions.
ASB Bank, one of New Zealand's largest banks, has responded to POLi with a release stating that POLi is "spoofing/mirroring" their on-line banking pages and capturing customer information, and "due to the serious security and fraud risks" recommending that their customers not use it. The release also claims that ASB has asked POLi to remove support for ASB customers from their service. POLi responded to the ASB advisory with an announcement, refuting the claims, and apparently reverting the version of the payment system.
ANZ New Zealand, Bank of New Zealand, Kiwibank, Commonwealth Bank, Westpac and Police Bank are also warning customers against using POLi. ANZ and Kiwibank have further advised that use of POLi invalidated the bank's online guarantee, potentially making the customer liable for any losses if their online banking account were to be compromised. POLi's terms and conditions note "We are not making any representation that we or POLi™ have the approval or, an affiliation with, or any licence from or agreement with your financial institution to operate or make POLi™ available for use by you."
Unlike payments via credit cards, payments made via POLi are not able to be reversed by the bank.
Version 1 and 2 that used the ActiveX and .NET platforms have additional security concerns regarding the integrity of this software and compatibility with non-Windows platforms.