Macquarie Telecom hosts Centricom's POLi

Web-based transactions service provider, Centricom has awarded the contract for hosting its online payment system, including mission-critical transaction applications and data, to Macquarie Hosting, a division of Macquarie Telecom.

Macquarie Hosting was selected for its proven experience with 100 percent web-facing companies and its ability to provide 24/7, secure availability of mission critical applications.

The system named POLi, will be hosted at Macquarie Hosting’s ISO and DSD Gateway certified data centre, the Intellicentre, in Sydney alongside sites for Federal and State government, national security agencies and major blue-chip businesses.

Simon Warner, managing director of Centricom said the deal is the outcome of a review of POLi’s future needs and its users’ expectations.

“Merchants and consumers quite rightly demand that an online payment system be hosted in the most secure of ways. With the growth we expect from POLi, we will need ever greater flexibility, agility and scalability,” he said.

According to Warner most of the six million internet bank account holders in Australia can use the POLi payment option when they see the distinctive black, blue and white POLi logo on a website, without undertaking any registration process.

“To make a purchase customers choose the POLi option at a merchant site and their standard internet banking site will come up in a new window,” he said. “They then simply login as they normally do and a ‘Pay Anyone’ page shows the merchant’s bank details and the amount payable.”

POLi is safe as neither the merchant nor POLi receive any of the customer’s private bank details; it is a secure transaction only between the customer and their bank’s Internet site, said Warner.