News

Paper-based Merchant Facilities

The ADF has been advised that CommBank branches will no longer be accepting manual transactions from paper-based merchant imprinters – colloquially known as “click clack machines”.

The first credit card imprinting machine is believed to have been developed in the 1930’s but the technology was first patented in 1977 by Richard B Feldman, three years after the introduction of Bankcard in Australia in 1974.

The ADF began phasing out paper-based merchants two years ago in response to the Payment Card Industry emphasis on securing access to credit card numbers, so almost all ADF customers will have already transitioned to CommBank EFTPOS terminals and BPOINT facilities.

Please contact the ADF if you need to transition to new merchant facilities as a result of these changes.

Apple Pay in Australia

Apple Pay launched in Australia on the 19th of November 2015 for American Express customers only, after Apple’s negotiations with the big Australian banks and VISA were unsuccessful. No doubt resulting from the Reserve Bank’s push to decrease interchange fees for credit cards, VISA is said to have banned Australian banks from sharing interchange fees with third parties, effectively locking Apple out of the market here. As American Express payments are not regulated, they can charge significantly higher fees than their regulated competitors, and this has allowed them to offer a portion of the merchant fee to Apple.

American Express transactions are said to make up around 19% of credit card transactions in Australia, and cardholders with American Express-issued cards can now add their AMEX cards to compatible iPhones and start making contactless payments with an iPhone or an Apple Watch.

ADF merchants with contactless CommBank merchant terminals (EFTPOS Mobile, Integrated and Albert Pi) with an attached American Express merchant facility can accept Apple Pay payments. If you do not have an American Express facility attached to your terminal but would like to accept Apple Pay payments, please contact the ADF for assistance.

Another year seems to be passing by quickly, and the end of the school year will be upon us before we know it.

The ADF has prepared a checklist of things to consider in relation to schools accounts, products and services with the ADF in readiness for the end of this year and the commencement of next year.

• ADF Checklist 2015 (opens in new window)

If schools require any assistance in relation to any of the checklist items, they are invited to contact their Relationship Manager.

After a period of internal consultation and review, the ADF is proud to launch our new website.

We’ve tried our best to include all the most relevant information for our customers but no website is perfect. If you experience any issues, have any feedback, or would like to make any suggestions, please let us know at adf@bne.catholic.net.au.

After many years of service the previous website has been consigned to the recycle bin. Here it is, for anyone who would like one last look just for nostalgia’s sake.

The Archdiocesan Development Fund is pleased to announce the upgrade of ADF Online.

The benefits to you will include:

• New look and feel
• Improved transaction search functionality
• Increased file upload capacity

The upgrade was undertaken on Saturday 18^th July 2015.

Thank you for your continued support of the Archdiocesan Development Fund.

The ADF has started preparing direct debit forms for 2016. We’re looking to introduce editable PDFs this year so that parents can type in the details and then print the form for signing. This will help to eliminate any scanning errors during the ADF’s data upload process.

In order to allow parents to fill out these forms they will need to be emailed rather than posted to parents. We will provide further details on this process change later in the year.

We’re very excited about these changes. Stay tuned for further information.

The ADF is looking to introduce forms that you can fill in online and email back to us. This is an exciting new development to help improve accuracy and should help everyone interested in relying less on paper.

If you have any feedback on this initiative, whether to tell us you think it’s a terrible idea or a great one, or to flag any issues you think we need to be aware of while introducing this change, we would love to hear from you.