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Today marks the beginning of the six week ‘golden season’ for Australian retailers .

Australians are expected to make a staggering 1.5 billion transactions between now and the end of the January post-Christmas sales.

This will peak at an estimated 85,000 transactions per minute.

Customers will spend more than $100 billion on their credit and debit cards over the six-week Christmas and New Year’s sales season, according to RBA estimated card transaction volume in November and December 2015.

Retailers will rely on it for up to 60% of their annual turnover.

However, Tyro executive Jost Stollmann has warned that bank IT failures threatened this ‘golden season’ for customers and retailers.

He claimed maintenance shut-downs, failures and outages have occurred twice weekly for the last six months.

“At a time of 24-hour retail trade during the busiest time of the year, it is critical that Australians have access to reliable 24/7 banking,” Stollmann said.

“Competition from international online retailers is fiercer than ever, so Australians need to be confident in their bank’s ability to rise to the challenge of this golden season.

“But Australian banking failures are leaving consumers stranded with no way of paying for their shopping, medication, meals or settling their bills, while retailers are vulnerable to lost sales.

“In the last fortnight alone, two of Australia’s big four banks had planned IT stoppages, leaving millions customers and businesses right across the country without access to payment platforms.”

Australia’s “Big Four” have suffered 29 service interruptions, or an average two a week, between June and September this year, he said.

Stollmann retailers will be forced to pay an estimated $650 million in ‘Grinch-like’ bank fees this Christmas season.

These are hidden interchange fees that banks charge each other for the use of credit and debit cards that are levied on retailers who often pass them onto consumers in the form of a surcharge or higher-priced goods.

“Banks prevent customers shopping when they want to because of many years of under investment in their core IT systems,” Stollmann said.

Stollman said as retailers move towards an increasingly cashless society, legacy systems established generations ago will need to be reassessed.

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