eWay puts gateway into Macquarie data centre

Payment gateway provider eWay has inked a three-year, $500,000 deal with Macquarie Hosting to host its online payment system, transaction applications and encrypted customer data.

eWay, which partners with CBA, Westpac, NAB and St George among others, said it will host the payment gateway in Macquarie's ISO and DSD Gateway certified data centre in Sydney.

While the gateway doesn't require a DSD-certified solution, it will be hosted within the same secure facility as sites for Federal and State government, national security agencies and major blue-chip businesses, Macquarie said.

All of eWay's systems will be hosted on a mix of dedicated Sun Microsystems and HP servers with high-availability firewalls, dual-redundant server load balancing and secure, high-throughput Internet connectivity.

The Macquarie Hosting solution will support expansion of the eWay business both locally and globally as it capitalises on increased consumer confidence in e-commerce transactions and online spending, it said.

eWay said its customer base "has grown significantly in the past ten years, with customer growth of more than 65 per cent in the last year alone".

"Merchants and consumers quite rightly demand that an online payment system be hosted in the most secure environment and keep pace with the latest trends in payment preferences and e-commerce transactions," said Matt Bullock, eWay's chief.

"Customer expectations around ease of use, guaranteed security and one hundred per cent availability of applications continue to rise, increasing pressure on the providers of online payment services."

Macquarie Hosting is certified to International Security Management Standard, ISO 27001, and holds the highest accreditation from the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards Council (PCI DSSC).