Live Payments
“Can an Australian SMB payment acquirer defend and grow share by wrapping loyalty rewards (Qantas Points) around every transaction type — in-store, online, mobile, and bill pay?”
Founded in 2006 by Macquarie Bank as a taxi-specific payments processor, Live Payments was privatised in 2008 and absorbed Taxi E Pay to broaden its footprint. Over the following decade it expanded from taxi into general SMB merchant acquiring with EFTPOS terminals, online gateways and a SoftPOS (LiveTap) product. More recently it layered loyalty on top of the payment rails — most visibly through Qantas Points on card transactions and the Live Bill Pay rewards platform — positioning itself as an all-in-one payments and rewards stack for Australian SMBs rather than a pure acquirer.