Retail industry advocate and veteran, Russell Zimmerman, is joining eftpos to support it to help Australian small and medium businesses reduce their costs in the COVID-19 rebuild. Zimmerman is the outgoing Executive Director of the Australian Retailers Association (ARA) and has been a long time contributor to Shopping Centre News.
Zimmerman starts at eftpos on 1 July to help the business assist Australian retailers to save money on their transaction costs, both at point of sale and in e-commerce. His main focus will be ‘Least Cost Routing’, a method that aims to send debit transactions – Australia’s most popular form of payment – to the lowest cost network.
“I have been involved in the retail industry for more than 35 years and spent the last 11 years of my career as Executive Director of the Australian Retailers Association, advocating for Australian retailers and their customers. Joining eftpos to promote lower-cost payments as the economy starts to rebuild after COVID is a natural next step for me,” Zimmerman said.
“As Australia’s own debit network, eftpos has been instrumental in driving down the cost of debit payments in Australia and I’m keen to see that merchants and their customers reap the benefits at this difficult time”, he said.
The COVID-19 pandemic has seen an increasing number of consumers moving to tap transactions at point of sale and ecommerce.
The COVID-19 pandemic has seen an increasing number of consumers moving to tap transactions at point of sale and ecommerce
Zimmerman said that as a result of this change, it is now more important than ever to promote the benefits of Least Cost Routing to ensure Australian retailers can reduce the costs associated with electronic payment acceptance.
eftpos CEO, Stephen Benton, welcomed Mr Zimmerman to eftpos, “Russell brings great experience and knowledge about Australian retail to eftpos and will help us deliver real benefits to the industry at this important time.”
“While Russell will focus on helping businesses reduce their costs, he will also consider other ways we can add value for Australian businesses to help them get through this difficult time, deliver better services to their customers and grow for the future”, he said.
eftpos is Australia’s own debit card network, accounting for more than two billion cheque and savings transactions in 2019 worth about $130 billion.
