POLi Payments

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 customers in Australia and New Zealand. POLi Payments was acquired by SecurePay Holdings, a fully owned subsidiary of Australia Post, in December 2014.

POLi enables customers 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 and that customers do not have to register to use POLi. The service is used in Australia and New Zealand with its largest merchants being Jetstar, Virgin Australia, Air New Zealand, Sportsbet and Sportingbet.

The service has attracted widespread criticism from banks and others. The service has also been implicated in enabling payments that could be used for illegal gambling.

History

POLi Version 3 was released in July 2012 and enabled payments on Macs and mobile devices; neither was possible on previous versions. The implementation logs into a user's online banking interface from an automated virtual machine using a user's provided bank credentials, in order to direct debit the purchase amount.

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. tis 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.Forum at The Register
br />"they are installing an ActiveX control (shudder) whose only purpose is to make payments to arbitrary bank accounts when the user logs into their online banking. There is another name for software that does that. Internet Banking Trojan."
"What a fantastic way to phish"
"Not meaning to be paranoid, but how can I be sure that the merchant's website is anymore genuine, and the POLi script anymore trustworthy than the average phishing email?"
"Not only is this an opportunity to phish people's bank details, you don't get the payment protection of using a credit card either."
"Score out of 4: 1. MSIE only = fail, 2. Active X = fail, 3. Direct access to my bank acct = fail, 4. No CC protection = fail"

Security concerns

Although POLi Payments stresses that security is a high priority, 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. (Note appears on page under date heading of 19 Dec 2012) 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, "Providing log in details to a third party presents very serious security risks and contradicts both the New Zealand Code of Banking Practice and our terms and conditions." Kiwibank,"We advise against using POLiPayments as it invalidates our internet banking guarantee & is not secure" Commonwealth Bank, "The Commonwealth Bank does not have any working agreement with POLi Payments, and, as such, the payment site is not endorsed or supported by the bank. The bank urges customers making online payments to do so via the bank's own NetBank site, which guarantees the customer's security," CBA told ZDNet. Westpac, Bank of Queensland, "We take your Internet Banking security very seriously and, for this reason, we do not support the use of 3rd party applications such as POLi." Bank Australia "Unfortunately POLi payments don’t meet our security standards." 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 cannot be reversed by the bank, nor are users protected under chargeback rules usually associated with major purchases undertaken using Credit or Debit Card payments. As a result, users may experience issues in seeking refunds or reimbursements for services not delivered, such as cancelled air flights or tickets. Forum at The Register
"the price seems to be the loss of any consumer protection"

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.

References

Further reading

*Baltazar, Michelle (2012)
"Just debit it: Centricom"
''Financial Standard''.

External links

Official website

{{Payment service providers

Online companies of Australia
Payment service providers
Online financial services companies of Australia