iSignthis Ltd (“the Company”), on behalf of its various Australian subsidiaries trading as ISXPay®, is pleased to announce it has entered into a number of agreements with card schemes (Tier 1) and other parties Tier 2 & 3) to allow it to continue to provide and ramp up its payment processing, clearing and settlement (“card acquiring services”) in Australia for all major card schemes, including Visa and Mastercard, as an alternative to its NAB arrangements. 

The Company’s card processing arrangements are independent of iSignthis eMoney (AU) Pty Ltd.’s APRA ADI application, and services are expected to commence with processing of Australian merchants by Mid-March 2019.

The Company advises its current Visa and Mastercard payment facility (“PayFac”) agreement with the National Australia Bank (ASX: NAB) will terminate effective 30th April 2019. The basis for the termination of the agreement with NAB is the NAB’s revised “High Risk MCC Update” policy. The NAB will discontinue the processing of CFD’s, FX, Equities, Remittance and Binary traders (“AML regulated sector merchants”) under the policy as it has adopted a “no appetite’ position for these sectors.

In support of the Company’s own strategy to deliver to the AML regulated sector merchants, the Company has entered into direct (Tier 1) licensing agreements as a Principal acquirer with the following major card schemes;

• Mastercard

• Diners / Discover (anticipated go live late April 2019)

• China Union Pay (anticipated go live late July 2019)

• American Express (anticipated go live late April 2019)

The entire suite of card schemes will be available to qualified merchants (subject to ISXPay terms & card scheme rules) over the course of H1 2019. ISXPay also offers some 15 plus non-Australian dollar currencies for card settlement and acceptance.

The Company’s focus is on AFSL regulated merchants and market makers including CFD, FX, Binary and equities traders, where Paydentity™ and multicurrency operations provide a competitive advantage to the Company and our merchants. The technology behind Paydentity™ is patented and has now onboarded more than 1.5m persons to a KYC standard.

Qualified Australian merchants may also open EURO (€) denominated eMoney (EMA) IBAN accounts, with eMoney accounts available in other currency denominations, including USD$, GBP£, HKD$, SGD$, CAD$, AUD$ and CHF, by Q2 2019. Australian dollar denominated accounts will follow post successful APRA ADI licensing.

The Company will report on the size of its Australian book and contracted Gross Processed Turnover Value progressively and separately to its EU GPTV book. As contracted GPTV converts to actual processed GPTV, the Company will then report on processed GPTV volume. The Company’s Sydney and Melbourne sales teams will also be seeking out other merchant categories as opportunity arises.