Woolworths is taking on the big four with its new stand-alone payments system, Wpay.

The supermarket giant is currently the country’s fifth-largest processor of card payments, outside the big four banks, with $50 billion worth of transactions a year.

Wpay will be available to independent retailers; part of chief executive Brad Banducci’s plan to build a “retail ecosystem” on top of the retail group’s bricks-and-mortar offerings.

“As Australia and New Zealand’s largest retailer, we’ve been investing in leading-edge payment capabilities to service our retail businesses for many years,” Banducci said.

“We believe there is value in extending the benefits of the investments we’ve made in our payments platform to other merchants who may not have the scale to build it themselves.

“Payments are an increasingly important part of the shopping experience both in-store and online and we bring unique expertise to this space as retailers.

“We’ll continue to invest in our platform to unlock the best possible experience for our stores and merchant partners.”