“We’re focussed on two sectors, travel and gaming” said McAlister.

The new CEO replaces POLi’s founder and long time CEO, Simon Warner who stood down from the role late last year.
Warner is, however,  but is still a director and significant shareholder in POLI’s owner, Centricom Ltd, along with UK listed payments company, Neovia. (formerly known as NeTeller)
Leading Melbourne private equity investors, the Libermans – through their family company, Jagen Ltd, still hold the majority interest.
McAlister said that Centricom has recently negotiated a new round of financing from its backers.
He said after last years cut-backs, including the sale of distribution rights in New Zealand to Merco, POLi  was on track to be cash positive by late this year, assuming some natural growth during the upcoming Spring racing carnival.

“We’ve got three of Australia’s biggest online bookies on board“, said McAlister. “Betfair, Sportingbet and Sportsbet customers can all use POLi” he said.

TABCorp’s  LUXBet Northern Territory-licensed online bookmaking service, too, offers POLi as an option.
McAlister said he was very hopeful of leveraging POLi into TABCorp’s much bigger online TAB Sportsbet operations in NSW and Victoria.
However he said that, in the short term, the new round of funding had removed some of the pressure to quickly become profitable.
He said that Centricom was looking for additional developers to help mae POLi more accessible, firstly to merchants in signing up and implementing POLi, and secondly to consumers so they can access POLi from a wider range of platforms (e.g. Apple Mac).
On the merchant front, McAlister said that Jetstar’s decision to accept POLi last year had not yet translated into acceptance at Jetstar’s parent – Qantas.
However he said that POLi was now being used by members the Qantas Staff Credit Union, and that this is one of a number of Australian Credit Unions now available on POLi
The locally developed POLi technology has become the focus of renewed industry interest in recent weeks because of the need to find a way of letting Australians use their EFTPOS debit card accounts to shop online.
POLIs ability to let users access the funds in their EFTPOS savings account, via an overlay to their Internet banking, is clearly one possible solution.
For more information go to
www.centricom.com
www.poli.com
www.getpoli.com.au
www.paywithpoli.com
www.merco.co.nz
www.neovia.com
www.eftpospayments.com.au

www.e-biz.com.au

www.balanceinternet.com.au

Australian consumers may soon be able to shop online using their EFTPOS cards.
That’s the promise of a new device developed by Melbourne inventor – Daniel Elbaum and his business partners in Point of Pay Pty Ltd (POP).
And the technology may be here sooner than you think.

“Once you’ve got the device plugged in, you can use any card that has a PIN attached, not just your bank  debit/savings EFTPOS card” he said.

Even so,  what makes these devices significant is their potential to enable Australians  to shop online using the funds in their EFTPOS linked bank savings accounts.
Currently, the only accounts that Australians can use for shopping online are those linked to debit cards issued by either Visa or Mastercard.  ( A fact that Visa is promoting very heavily in its current Australian television advertising campaign ).
But the Reserve Bank of Australia, and many retailers, would be far happier to see debit cards linked to EFTPOS savings accounts also able to be used for online shopping.
That’s because the locally developed EFTPOS system is not only generally reliable and cheap to run, it is very secure.
And there is no doubt that the rate of fraudulent transactions on the Australian EFTPOS network is much lower than on the competing Visa and Mastercard networks.
But Australia’s banks have dragged their heels on the problem.
They have recently backed the formation of an industry-owned company, EFTPOS Payments Australia (EPAL), to promote the locally developed EFTPOS payments network and technology.
But EPAL has only recently appointed a chief executive and is yet to make any significant announcements.
Similarly, a project where the banks themselves were to develop an online EFTPOS card payments technology – sometimes referred to as Project MAMBO – is widely held to have come to nought.
Project MAMBO is seen as threatening the viability of the very successful BPAY business.
So is the POP technology also going to threaten BPAY’s dominance, and is the POP technology likely to be the complete answer to Australia’s problem with taking EFTPOS online?
The answer to both questions is probably no.
But Con Scrinis certainly has high hopes.
Scrinis is a successful Australian technology developer, being the co-founder and joint managing director of ASX listed Traffic Technologies Ltd
And Computronics was struggling until Scrinis and two fellow investors came in and took control of the company earlier this year.
Since then Scrinis appears to have largely dumped Computronics old businesses, and this $5million deal with POP appears to be the main focus for the future of the company.
His $5million deal with POP will give Computronics a ‘Global Exclusive Master License’ to sell and use the POP technology.
Computronics has already paid an initial $500,000 for the license, with the remaining $4.5million to be paid over the next 6 months.
Scrinis told eCommerce Report that there will two types of POP terminals available in the market. The first is for consumers, and a second, offers a low-cost EFTPOS option to merchants.

“The same device is used by both merchants and consumers,” he said, “but the merchant version has additional functions such as a printer for receipts”.
“We think the merchant terminal is a very low-cost option that even very small businesses will find attractive”, said Scinis  “because it’ll cost less than $200 to buy one.”

Scrinis said the 73 of the PoP merchant terminals are being trialled in NZ at the moment with Datacom.
The terminals were certified as suitable for NZ’s EFTPOS system earlier this year by Paymark, (formerly known as Electronic Transaction Services Ltd).

For more information go to
www.computronics.com.au
www.pointofpay.com.au
www.datacom.co.nz
www.paymark.co.nz

“SEEK has experience sustained month on month growth in job ads. Online job ad volume growth is outpacing growth in print ads … This reflects the trend of continuing structural migration from print to online with online now capturing approximately 80% of all jobs ads.”

Bassat said that the company is the market leader and cited Nielsen’s data as showing SEEK drew a record 3.9million unique browsers in June 2010.
Melbourne IT, too, has reported this week, and, like the others, detailed healthy profit growth.  The domain name, web-hosting and IT services company said its Net profit after tax was up 11% in the latest half year, to some $A7million.
CEO Theo Harakis said that the result was especially pleasing given the adverse currency movements in the half.  Melbourne IT has a significant international domain name registration business, and so any appreciation in the Australian currency tends to weight down its profit numbers.
He said that despite challenging conditions in the US and Europe during the half, revenue had grown.

“Ünderlying growth remains healthy. With first half revenue growing 5% year on year on a constant currency basis using 2009 foreign exchange rates…”

Brisbane headquartered Wotif.com Holdings Limitedwas the last pof the big four local ecommerce companies to report. It too, said that 2010 has been a very good year and said that its net profit after tax was some $A53million, up 22% on last year.
Revenues were up 12% to a total of $A136million for the year which Group Managing Director and CEO, Robbie Cooke, said was very pleasing.
He said that the company’s growth was a testament to the soundness of Wotif’s business model.

“Growing our share of the accommodation segment from approximately 8% to 10% over the last year bears testament to the complelling Wotif model. We provide a win-win outcome for consumers and hoteliers alike. Our customer get access to the broadest range of best value accommodation sourced directly from our hotel and accommodation partners. Our accommodation poartners get access to our very significant customer base and to the lowest cost distribution model available.”

For more information go to:
www.carsales.com.au
www.seek.com.au
www.melbourneit.com
www.wotif.com.au

“This is not a move into the automotive auction space – carsales.com.au is and will continue to be the best way to buy and sell cards. This eCommerce and general classified solution is intended to allow our existing and future customers to access a wider range of products and services in a range of verticals – without leaving the key websites they know and trust.”

Roebuck said that more than 480,000 Australians already use OZtion and that it had 450,000 buy-it-now and auction listings.
Whilst those numbers may be debatable, there is little doubt that the OZtion brand and name is valuable in the Australian market.
OZtion started in 2005 and quickly found a successful niche in the Australian online auction space.
That niche became much more substantial in the wake of eBay Australia’s abortive attempt to make PayPal payment compulsory back in 2008. Many eBay users signed up to what was perceive as an alternative, and a local Australian-owned site, in protest at the US company’s policies.
Others gravitated to OZtion because of the Trading Post’s refusal, for many, years to embrace online and then auction style listings for general classifieds.

For more information go to

www.oztion.com.au
www.carsales.com.au
www.quicksales.com.au

Source: Telstra - A Telstra technician cuts a cable

Telstra is expecting to boost its profits as much as $150million this year by selling its 51% share in Chinese online real estate business – SouFun.

But the profit is not yet certain and there is considerable confusion around Telstra’s Chinese online investments.

Even so, its clear Telstra’s Soufun sale doesn’t its mean walking away from involvement in the Chinese online marketplace.

It has significant interests in Chinese online auto and IT retailers, and has recently bought into Chinese mobile content and value added service providers.

Telstra revealed its plan for SouFun to become a public company in 2010 last December. But its statement to the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) on the 1^st of December was only three lines; it said little more than that Telstra would sell down its 51% shareholding in the IPO.

Now however, it is clear that Telstra is selling out of SouFun entirely.

Its official statement to the ASX on 13 August said that two private equity firms – Apax and General Atlantic – along with the two other existing Soufun shareholders, had guaranteed to underwrite the sale of all Telstra’s shares in the upcoming IPO.

It said that if the IPO didn’t happen within “a specified period of time”, Telstra’s deal partners would buy its 51% share.  The price paid will be based on a valuation of Soufun at $US$810million.

As Telstra paid $US254million for its stake in the company just four years ago, the deal will guarantee Telstra a profit of $US150 million.

SouFun is also believed to have been profitable during Telstra’s four year majority ownership and, unlike some of its other high-profile Asian investments, (e.g. Reach and CSL) seems likely to have a happy ending.

Of course the future is always unknown and the float, which appears to be planned for the US NASDAQ stock exchange, is still no certainty.

The US economy and stock market are obviously less healthy than they once were, and an $US810million price on SouFun may be seen as excessively greedy.

Telstra’s financial accounts for the year ending June 2010 showed income from all its Chinese online businesses of just $A234million.

That figure is up a healthy 16.4% on last year, but is based on ‘unaudited management accounts.’

Moreover the figure includes contributions from Telstra’s other online Chinese business interests about which relatively little is known.

Back in June 2008, Telstra bought a 55% interest in Sequel Limited.  According to the review of operations in this years  financial results, Sequel is a major player in online car sales and consumer electronics.

“Our Sequel businesses, Autohome and CHE168 are number online in online auto, whilst PCPop and IT168 are number two in online consumer electronics.

”

These claims are hard to verify this far away, as too is the claim that SouFun is China’s number one online real estate portal.

Certainly Telstra hasn’t released any figures for these businesses. And there is clearly some confusion around them

According to the latest Telstra financial report the company acquired its interest in Mobile in February 2010.

And a Telstra spokeswoman told eCommerce Report that the company now owned 67% of the company known as L Mobile.

But China Tech News carries a report dated early 2009 and has former Telstra CEO Sol Trujillo talking about the deals.

“Today we’ve added consumer mobile content and music to Telstra’s online real estate, automotive and digital device businesses in China, expanding our position in the world’s fastest-growing online market.”

According to China tech news Telstra acquired a 67% interest in both ‘China M and Sharp Point’.

It said that China M is one of the hundreds of Chinese suppliers of consumer mobile content, and serves 350,000 customers every day. Sharp Point is said to provide technical services for China Mobile’s mobile music platform.

The China Tech News story also included an unsubstantiated claim that Telstra director John Stanhope, had reportedly said the mobile acquisitions cost $302million and had been paid for in cash.

For more information go to:

www.autohome.com.cn

www.che168.com

www.IP168.com

www.pcpop.com

www.telstra.com

www.soufun.com

http://www.chinatechnews.com/2009/02/11/8764-telstras-new-china-investments-eye-chinas-growing-mobile-market

Online advertising, Australia, 2005-2010

Google pays virtually no taxes in Australia, because its Adwords advertising business is registered in Ireland.
So, as the latest estimates from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) reveal, the company is growing even richer and fatter off the backs of Australian businesses.
That’s a harsh characterization, no doubt, and also a misrepresentation of the numbers released by the IAB this week.
In actuality, the numbers are estimates of the total on line advertising spend by Australian businesses, and not just at Google.

Moreover the headline supplied says spend is now in excess of $2billion per year, and up 13% on last year’s total.
Advertising agencies and digital marketers will also be heartened by the news that the latest quarter’s spend was up a precocious 22% on the same quarter last year.
Commenting on the Report, Paul Fisher, CEO of IAB Australia, said

Paul Fisher, Interactive Advertising Bureau CEO

“The long awaited and much forecast $2 billion dollar mark has finally been breached.  Powered by strong growth in all three categories and with continued double digit growth forecast, Australian online advertising expenditure is on track to exceed $3billion in the next four years.
With increased online consumption, explosive growth in the use of social media and online video content and advertising; and improved online audience measurement, advertisers and media agencies continue to grow their advertising investment where they get the best results – online” .

Even so, the figures also suggest a market even more dominated by Google than previously.
The search and directories segment accounted for a tick over half of all the spending over the last year.
And Google is thought to account for 90% of it.
eCommerce Report is careful to qualify its remarks about the data as they relate to Google because the company, despite being a member of the IAB, refuses to supply any data to the survey.
The survey’s numbers are therefore only estimates as they relate to the search and directories segment.
In the classifieds and general display segments however, the survey numbers are compiled from the data supplied by the participating companies.
They reveal that both email based advertising and video based online advertising, grew strongly during the June quarter, albeit on a small base.

Email based advertising reach $33.8m during the 12 months to 30th June and $8.7 million in Q2 2010 – an increase from $7.9 million recorded in Q1 2010.  Video based advertising comprised $25.3m of advertising expenditure for the 12 months to 30th June and $9.6 million in Q2 2010 – a significant jump from $5.7 million in Q1 2010.

The IAB also said that ‘cost-per-thousand-impressions’ (CPM) continues to be the dominant pricing method used in charging for online display advertising.
It 75 per cent of general display advertising across the last year was billed via CPM.
For further information about IAB Australia please visit:

www.iabaustralia.com.au

Its hard to be certain, because the wording of the offer is so bad, but PayPal appears to be relaxing its notoriously tough policies on chargebacks.
Thats our tentative conclusion after an email we got from payPal this week saying “selected Australian online merchants” who already accept PayPal have been offered a “limited time promotional offer.”
In typically obtuse legalese PayPal says the offer is a “Merchant Unauthorised Payment Protection offer”.
Currently, PayPal ‘s chargeback rules are very strict and tilted in favour of consumers.
Where consumers dispute purchases, unless merchants respond very promptly with conclusive evidence, PayPal’s current procedures automatically reverse the transaction.
In other words, if a consumer disputes a transaction, they get their funds back almost automatically
And the merchant loses the fund almost automatically.
So merchants accepting PayPal have a strong incentive to address consumer complaints very promptly.
But even when they do, there is little doubt that some consumers abuse the policy.
Some online merchants have had customers getting their Paypal funds back, but never returning the goods they’d complained about.
The new policy goes some way towards alleviating that situation.
Consumers will still get their funds back almost automatically, but now merchants have a formal PayPal promise that, if an investigation goes their way, their account will be re-credited with the funds, including any fees that may have been deducted.
The new policy also formally addresses other situations where merchants are the victim, such as in cases of PayPal accounts being compromised and used to buy goods fraudulently, and /or in cases of identity theft.
The relaxation of the rules (if it is in fact any relaxation) is only a trial however, and, for eCommerce Report, will end in six months.
It isn’t clear what happens after then, even though PayPal is saying the protection offer will cover unauthorised transactions discovered by PayPal up until 30 June 2011.
The offer also excludes eBay sales and payments made direct from one Paypal account to another.

For more information go to:
www.paypal-business.com.au

A $10million capital raising and public float of the controversial Adelaide-based company, My ATM Holdings Limited, may still go ahead, despite a stop order issued by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).
That’s not just because the original prospectus and its application form can still be downloaded from the company’s web site at www.myatm.com.au.
Nick Cape from the sponsoring brokers to the issue, Novus Capital Ltd, told eCommerce Report that the ASIC stop order means that any money applications for shares have to be sent back.
“We can’t accept them” he said.
Cape said that ASIC had had concerns over the valuation numbers in the prospectus, and had insisted that an independent report be commissioned.
According to the broker, this has now been done and he said a new prospectus is expected to be issued next week.
ASIC declined to comment on the broker’s claims, and refused to comment on press reports suggesting the regulator had serious concerns over the goodwill number in the prospectus.
According to some of those reports, the less than 18month old company is claiming $19million in goodwill.
Most of that goodwill is said to have come from a deal earlier this year where My ATM issued millions of shares to buy a related business, Aussie ATM.
If correct, that’s a hefty valuation, whether or not the valuation is based on just the Aussie ATM fleet of 474 machines, or whether it also includes the 1394 machines that My ATM investors have bought thus far.
Its hefty because the machines that My ATM arranges to be sold to its investors cost between $14,000 and $35,000. So it seems a bit of a stretch to say that they suddenly become worth around $50,000 as soon as they are installed.
ASIC’s spokeswoman was also coy about what the original interim stop –order, issued in early July, was intended to stop and as to why the order has been extended.
Presumably some of her caution was prompted by the fact that ASIC had to issue a public correction on the 3rd of August.
The extension was initially posted to the ASIC web-site as a ‘final’ stop order and widely reported as such.
In fact the interim stop-order had merely been extended, and so remained an interim order.
But aside from all the shenanigans over the ASIC order, the MY ATM business has been controversial right from the beginning.
As we revealed in our original story, My ATM was offering guaranteed 20% returns to investors.
Tim Scala, one of two main shareholders in My ATM, told eCommerce Report that the guarantee had been dropped from the company’s advertising.
“We talk about contracted returns now” he said.
Scala said that the initial difficulties with the prospectus are close to being resolved, and that a valuation report prepared by leading valuers – Leadenhall VRG Ltd – is being lodged with ASIC today.
He said he hoped the report would resolve all of ASIC’s concerns and leave the company free to resume its capital raising and planned listing on the Stock Exchange in early September.
Up to $10 million is being sought in MY ATM’s capital raising through the sale of new shares equal to about a 20% stake in the company.
Scala and Donald Fleming – a one-time bankrupt – both hold the largest stakes in the company.
My ATM, which has a sponsorship deal with AFL football club, Port Adelaide – also boasts former Liberal federal MP’s Ross Cameron and Grant Chapman amongst its major share-holders.
www.myatm.com.au
www.asic.gov.au