ATO wants 'people to pay by credit card'

A payments provider is being sought after by the Australian Tax Office to enable people to use credit cards to pay bills.

The Australian Tax Office (ATO) wants to enable a service whereby people can pay bills by using a credit card.

The organisation is hoping a payments provider comes forward to ensure it can set up the format after it experienced a rise in demand, ZDNet reports.

Since 2007, there has been an increase each year of around one million people making phone and internet transactions.

Early last year it converted thousands of payments to Aussie credit, which reached the heights of 9,024 transactions in March, although this service was not advertised.

But this year it has seen 9.4 million deals completed over the phone and internet to June and this reached an average of 80,000 a month after a record high in March of 255,000.

This news comes after the ATO warned people earlier this month to be aware of scams, noting it never sends out email requests asking for details of a person's credit cards.

By Mark Hornby