We asked over 1500 NZ businesses what they need from their EFTPOS setup. In 2025, five expectations stood out loud and clear - and they’re shaping how we support our customers this year and beyond.
#1 reason our customers stay with us
“Reliable service. Fast customer service when things go wrong.”
46% of our customers say reliability is the top reason they stick with us — more than price, features, or anything else. That’s why we continue to invest in proactive monitoring and engineering resilience to support the 100% uptime of our payment network.
77.7% prefer to call when something goes wrong
When there’s an issue with EFTPOS, Kiwi businesses still want a human on the line. But preferences are shifting. When asked which self-service tools they would find useful, 58% selected Help Centre articles and 33% chose Live Chat. We've already launched a Live Chat trial on our website and we're working on making online troubleshooting smoother — so you can get the help you want, how you want it.
Top features customers say add value
| Rank | Feature | % of respondents |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Offline mode | 34% |
| 2 | Dynamic surcharging | 30% |
| 3 | Paper-saving options | 29% |
| 4 | Email receipts |
26% |
| 5 | POS integration | 19% |
#1 payments pain point for 34% of businesses
The cost of accepting some payments — especially contactless and credit — is the top concern for Kiwi businesses.
Customers are asking for:
Greater transparency around what they’re being charged
Smarter tools to recover those costs
Reports that make it easier to understand where fees are coming from
Here’s what you need to know:
Contactless and credit card fees aren’t set by us — they’re set by the card networks and passed on to you by your bank.
The Commerce Commission is capping Interchange Fees (the biggest chunk of these costs) from December 2025. That should mean a real reduction in what you pay.
From May 2026, new regulations will restrict surcharging on some types of transactions — but we’ll make sure your setup stays compliant, and we’ll be in touch before anything changes.
We’ve also added the Surcharge Amount field back to Custom Reports in Verifone Central, so you can track what you’re recovering in real time.
When it comes to how merchants want to hear from us, email is the preferred channel communicating for billing, software, compliance, account changes, and more (88–96% preference).
And when it comes to what content merchants want from us:
58% want product updates
51% want quick tips or troubleshooting guides
39% want FAQs
18.7% say they don’t want newsletters at all — and that’s ok too
We’re reshaping our email content around what matters most: relevant, practical info in your inbox — and less of what you don’t need.
Here’s how we’re using your feedback to shape what’s next:
✅ Features: Improving the reporting and customisation experience on your terminal
✅ Alerts: Exploring better ways to notify you of service disruptions
✅ Comms: Giving you more control over who on your team receives what communications
👉 Want the full survey insights?
Read our 2025 Customer Survey Wrap-up