Rambus Brings Apple Pay To eftpos Cardholders

On Tuesday (Oct. 17), Rambus, Inc. announced news of a partnership with domestic Australian debit network eftpos. The collaboration will allow eftpos to support Apple Pay through its issued debit cards.

Rambus, which launched a comprehensive mobile payments platform earlier this year, is helping eftpos bring tokenization to Australian cardholders.

The Australian debit network will integrate its cards with Rambus’ Token Service Provider (TSP) technology, which tokenizes payer information and replaces sensitive details with reference numbers.

“With millions of eftpos-only debit cards distributed across Australia by its members, eftpos is the country’s most popular debit payment method,” said Chakib Bouda, CTO of the Rambus Payments Division. “This partnership allows more than a million consumers to enjoy secure mobile payments using Apple Pay, leveraging our proven EMV tokenization software for trusted transactions.”

Rambus’ TSP technology replaces traditional account numbers used by plastic cards with alternative identifiers called payment tokens. Integration with the technology will allow eftpos cardholders to use their debit cards to make payments with the added security layer of Apple Pay and tokenization.

“Our partnership with Rambus gives us the ability to accelerate our secure mobile payments strategy and support Apple Pay,” said eftpos Acting CEO Paul Jennings. “We are excited to move from our traditional card-based payment method into mobile, offering our members in Australia the opportunity to benefit from the convenience and security of Apple Pay.”

When cardholders use eftpos debit cards enabled with Apple Pay, card numbers and details are stored neither on Apple’s servers nor on the point-of-sale device. A unique device account number is assigned and encrypted, and each transaction is authorized with a unique security code.

Apple has been busy expanding its payments solutions overseas, eyeing markets in India as well as in Australia. The company has also launched Apple Pay Cash, a peer-to-peer payments service, slated for a late October debut.