EastLink enhances customer experience and credit card security for phone call payments

While most EastLink payments are made automatically or via the EastLink website, some customers continue to prefer to pay over the phone with a customer service operator.

Since May 2017, automatic payments and website payments with EastLink use tokens provided securely by EastLink’s bank. This ensures that card details are not stored in our systems.

Before 31 July 2024, our Contact Centre operators processed card payments on behalf of customers through our systems.

There are some residual risks with this type of phone payment. For example, the customer could be in a public place when reading out the card details – they could be overheard and have their card details stolen.

To further enhance security and eliminate these residual risks, EastLink has introduced a secure system for phone payments, collecting card details directly from the customer’s phone keypad entry. This avoids any card details being processed by our operators.

• The EastLink customer service operator does not see or hear the card details.

• Payments with a debit or credit card over the phone are processed on the spot by the bank without card details being stored or handled by our systems.

• The customer service operator remains on the call with the customer throughout, to help resolve any payment difficulties and to assist with further service requests following the payment.

Bill Advic, EastLink’s General Manager, Information Technology said, “Customer experience and customer security remain top of mind for EastLink especially when it comes to credit and debit card payments.  This new system is a real game-changer for processing phone payments. It means we can provide a better, more secure and easy to use phone payment system for our customers.”