Luke Henriques-Gomes 

Eftpos outage resolved, says Telstra, after earlier advising people to carry cash

Company says ‘faulty vendor equipment’ to blame as business owners express frustration over lost sales
  
  

Telstra retail signage
The nationwide Telstra outage comes days after an issue affected access to some of its apps and its website. Photograph: Joel Carrett/AAP

Telstra says it has “resolved” a network outage that left people unable to use Eftpos machines and ATMs at businesses across the country.

On Saturday morning, the telco had advised people carry cash instead of relying on tap-and-go, as the outage dragged on into its second day.

But a spokesman confirmed on Saturday afternoon that the issue had been resolved.

“We sincerely apologise to customers for the impact it had through yesterday and overnight,” he said.

On Friday, people began complaining that they were unable to pay for taxis at the end of a trip or withdraw money from ATMs.

As people stepped out for their Saturday morning brunch, business owners had expressed frustration that they remained unable to charge customers using Eftpos.

A Telstra spokesman blamed the outage on “faulty vendor equipment”.

“Our team worked through the night on the fix and we are seeing the machine-to-machine traffic returning to normal,” he said.

“All devices should now be capable of connecting. A small number of devices may require a restart to reconnect and we are working this through with our customers.”

Earlier, business owners said the outage was costing them money, and banks also received many complaints.

The ANZ said in a statement: “We are aware of a nationwide telecommunications outage that’s impacting some of our business customers’ Eftpos machines.

“We are seeking updates from our telecommunications partner and will let you know if there’s a timeframe for this being fixed or a work-around.”

Commonwealth Bank advised businesses to switch its tap-and-go terminals to wifi.

The outage comes days after an issue affected access to some Telstra apps and the company’s website, including cloud services.

Australian consumers are increasingly turning to tap-and-go payment methods – a Reserve Bank study last yearfound that credit and debit card transactions had overtaken cash.

 

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