eftpos Australia said yesterday that it had picked the banking technology supplier FIS to build a centralised payments hub that will supersede its 30-year-old bilateral network. FIS (formerly Fidelity National Information Services) provides third-party card processing in Australia and New Zealand. Woolworths also operates its switch on FIS."This new hub has the potential to be one of the most significant developments in Australia's payments industry since eftpos cards first entered the market almost 30 years ago," eftpos managing director Bruce Mansfield said. Mansfield said the eftpos hub was "complementary" to the separate "new payments platform" that the Australian Payments Clearing Association is steering (with the support of KPMG).The NPP project is designed to foster real-time payments and, more generally, foster innovation."We are building a hub that meets eftpos' transformational needs and future needs. Clearly, there will be a conversation at some stage with the new payments platform," Mansfield said.He said that when available, the eftpos hub "could be an overlay service" to the new payments platform.Mansfield said eftpos Australia would fund the new hub - with a budget he would only put as being "in the tens of millions of dollars" - from operating revenue.  "The majority of the investment decision is with us. The financial burden on our participants [ie, the banks] is minimal."eftpos said the new hub "will not only help us to get our products to market much faster, but it also aims to significantly reduce the costs associated with product implementation for the industry as a whole."Mansfield said eftpos' next milestone was the transition to chip and contactless in the first half of 2014."The focus from June 2014 to September 2015 is to connect all eftpos participants to the eftpos hub."