Wednesday 22 March 2017

Indue Limited, the Healthy Welfare Card and IBM


Image from Crikey.com.au

Indue Limited has been awarded at least $324 million in Dept. of Human Services and Centrelink contracts since 2009, including contracts to supply the infamous Basics Card and Healthy Welfare Card income management cards.

In it 2015-16 annual report it boasted a $5.1 million profit before tax.

According to Indue it exists to deliver financial payment products and settlement services that impress our clients and holds an Authorised Deposit-taking Institution (ADI) licence.

Its subsidiaries are:

Indue Securitisation Pty Ltd
Indue Aggregation Services Pty Ltd
Indue Data Services Pty Ltd Australia
Ivey Pty Ltd
Trinity Securities Pty Ltd
Lynx Financial Systems Pty Ltd

Although the company’s 2015-16 annual report lists director on pages 12-14 and key personnel elsewhere in the document, it is rather coy about the names of shareholders.

From 2008 to 2013 National Party member Larry Anthony sat on the Indue board and for much of that period he was also Senior Vice President Australia of the Nationals.

The company also remains coy about its future direction:

Information on likely developments in the operations of the Group and the expected results of operations have not been included in this annual financial report because the Directors believe it would be likely to result in unreasonable prejudice to the Group.

Indue Limited currently operates the Centrelink Cashless Debit Card Trial (CDCT).

The Indue cashless debit card hold 80% of a Centrelink client’s pension, benefit or allowance and can be used for purchases via eftpos or online, but cannot be used to buy alcohol or to gamble.

On 9 February 2017 Orima Research reported:

Participation in the Trial is mandatory for all working age ISP recipients in the selected Trial sites. In addition, wage earners, Age Pensioners and Veterans’ Affairs Pensioners who live in the Trial sites can opt in to the CDCT.

More participants said the CDCT had made their lives worse than made it better (49% compared to 22%). Family members of trial participants gave a similar pattern of answers….

participants and family members both felt that the overall level of humbugging had gone up since the Trial started….

The Turnbull Government is extending this trial and there is talk of eventually rolling the cashless debit card out nationally.


International Business Machine Corp (IBM) is developing a global history of failure.

Currently IBM ‘expertise’ and software supports programs including the hapless myGov interface for the Australian Taxation Office, Centrelink, Medicare and My Health Record.

Welfare payments and a company using yet more IMB software?

What could possibly go wrong for Centrelink clients?

A little Indue background

The company has its representatives on the following:

Boards
eftpos Payments Australia Limited (Indue has formed an alliance with Cuscal for representation on this board – Cuscal is representing both organisations until the October 2016 AGM)
ATM Access Australia Limited

APCA Committees
Australian Payments Forum
APCA Management Committee 2 (BECS)
Card not Present Fraud Implementation Steering Committee
APCA Fraud in Banking Forum

BPAY Committees
BPAY Management Committee
BPAY Fraud Sub-Committee
BPAY Marketing Sub-Committee

Visa Committees
Visa Client Operations Committee
Visa Regional Risk Executive Council

MasterCard Committees
MasterCard Advisory Council

New Payments Platform
Program Delivery Authority (PDA)
Design Authority (DA)
Planning and Reporting Working Group (PWG)
Testing Working Group (TWG)
Operational Procedures Working Group (OWG)
ICS Working Group (IWG)
Transition to Live Working (T2L)

Other Committees and Working Groups
Cashcard Network Advisory Council
Australasian Card and Risk Council
Cashcard Network Members Forum
Industry Security Steering Committee
eftpos Payments Australia Limited Member Advisory Council

Major partners
First Data International – Indue partners with First Data International for card switching and processing.
Visa – Indue is a principal member of Visa and licensed to issue all Visa card products including credit, debit, prepaid, commercial and premium cards. These cards can be used in ATMs and eftpos terminals throughout Visa’s global network of 24 million point-of-sale terminals and 2.1 million ATMs.
MasterCard – Indue is a principal member of MasterCard and licensed to issue MasterCard card products including credit, debit, prepaid, commercial and premium cards. These cards may be used in ATMs and eftpos terminals throughout MasterCard’s global network of 32 million acceptance locations, including 24 million point-of-sale terminals and in excess of one million ATMs.
eftpos – Indue is a member of eftpos and licensed to issue eftpos card products. These cards may be used in ATMs and eftpos terminals throughout the domestic Australian eftpos network.
Placard – We have partnered with Placard for the manufacturing and personalisation of all card products.
Computershare – Our statements and mail house services are provided by Computershare.
Westpac – Westpac provides clearing and settlement facilities to Indue as well as cheque reading services.
BPAY – Indue is a member of BPAY allowing us to offer both payer and biller facilities to our clients.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

This reeks of corruption of the highest order. What a dispicable government we have.

AZ said...

And yet where dafuq are the measures to prevent such rampant corruption and fraud? Those in power are those who benefit and so how do we change this, as clearly they will not.