Australia’s real-time payments platform goes live today, with customers of three of the country’s big four banks able to transfer funds in seconds. The New Payments Platform (NPP) will enable customers of Commonwealth Bank, National Australia Bank and Westpac to send money via a service called PayID, which requires users to enter only the recipients’ mobile phone number or email address. Other financial institutions, including ANZ, will follow.
A new payments system has officialy launched in Australia today, giving consumers and businesses access to „the most modern payments system in the world”, according to the press release. Soon services that use the Platform capabilities will commence rolling out from about 60 banks, building societies and credit unions across the country, giving consumers and businesses the ability to:
. transfer money instantly between accounts at different financial institutions;
. make these payments any time of day, any day of the year;
. include more accompanying information with these payments than ever before (up to 280 characters of information to be attached to payments);
. use a PayID, a simpler way to pay that lets you see the name of the person or business you are paying before sending the payment.
CEO of NPP Australia Adrian Lovney says: „We know that Australians are frustrated about the amount of time it takes to move money between accounts at different banks, which can sometimes be as long as two to three days. We expect that over the next month or so, Australians will be able to transfer money instantly to each other through poducts like Osko by BPAY.”
Osko is the first product to be developed using the Platform capabilities; it will be available through online and mobile banking applications without the need to download an app or go to another website. According to John Banfield, CEO of BPAY Group, the new person to person service will mean Australian will be able to pay their friends, family or even freelancers, usually in under a minute, within the security of their usual online or mobile banking.
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The Platform went live in November last year and has supported funds transfers between employees at a number of different banks, building societies and credit unions.
The billion dollar project is being run by NPP Australia, which was set up by the industry in late 2014 in response to cajoling from the country’s central bank, eager to catch up with the likes of the UK in the faster payments arena.
Swift was brought in in 2015 on a 12-year contract to design, build and operate the platform’s basic infrastructure.
Banking 4.0 – „how was the experience for you”
„So many people are coming here to Bucharest, people that I see and interact on linkedin and now I get the change to meet them in person. It was like being to the Football World Cup but this was the World Cup on linkedin in payments and open banking.”
Many more interesting quotes in the video below:
