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FEATURE
Is it too soon to cash out? A recent outage by payment services company Opayo shone a light on the frailties of a cashless society. Relying wholly on technology as opposed to tangible cash, has its issues. Fionnuala Carolan looks at the pros and cons of a cashless society
The Covid-19 pandemic caused a drastic decline in cash usage due to the risk of contamination from exchanging cash. In 2020 e-money transactions through methods such as Apple Pay and Google Pay saw a 1,700% increase, according to the European Central Bank. Businesses that continue to fail to provide card payment services are seen as nearly archaic. Many of us don’t even carry a wallet or debit/credit cards anymore due to the ability to pay through Google Pay and Apple Pay on our phones. While business owners and consumers have become accustomed to not holding much cash, problems arise when technology fails and this will inevitably happen from time to time. Exclusively relying on technology has its limits. This became apparent when a technical problem at payments company Opayo, formerly known as Sage Pay, happened on 21 March leaving many retail outlets around the country unable to process card transactions. The outage lasted for approximately eight hours but it caused enough trouble for business owners to ponder whether relying entirely on card payments is really the way forward.
Opayo Opayo was formerly known as Sage Pay, but the name was changed after Sage Pay was bought by US Bancorp subsidiary Elavon in 2019 for a reported €270m. Opayo has around 50,000 customers in Ireland including SuperValu and Avoca, and says that only a proportion of its customers were impacted by the outage that started shortly after lunchtime on Monday, 21 March. The Banking and Payments Federation of Ireland (BPFI), the representative body for the payments sector here, is investigating how it came about and at the time said: “The issue appears to have so far affected card transactions at certain outlets of SuperValu and also an off-licence chain, as well as bookshops and other smaller retailers.” Shoppers in SuperValu stores were unable to use their cards to pay for their shopping but within a few hours Opayo said the problem had been fixed and the system was functioning normally again. “We can confirm the issue is now resolved and normal service is restored. We continue to monitor the service closely,” Opayo said.
Online affected CSNA CEO Vincent Jennings has called on the Central Bank to investigate the Opayo card payments outage that occurred on 21 March
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Interestingly, the company said its online payment services were not affected during this outage. However some SuperValu customers reported problems carrying out online
transactions on the supermarket’s website at the same time. And in a tweet, SuperValu confirmed that its card payment service provider was experiencing technical issues which were affecting the processing of card payments at its stores as well as online. The last known previous outage experienced by Opayo customers was on 17 June 2021, which impacted companies around the world including EasyJet, Krispy Kreme, Europcar and Office Shoes. Those representing the Irish retail trade are not happy to just accept that ad hoc outages will occur from time to time due to the complete disruption to business that it causes and are looking for assurances that there will be more back-up in the future.
Investigate The Convenience Stores and Newsagents Association (CSNA) called on the Central Bank to investigate the outage. “The disruption in supermarkets and convenience and forecourts was truly extensive,” said CSNA chief executive Vincent Jennings. “Retailers lost sales and credit had to be given to other customers, with the hope now that they will pay up,” Jennings added. “I’ve asked the Central Bank to assure me that they are seeking a report and to confirm they are aware the Opayo system went down at the same time throughout the UK.”
