Dianne Shay, Senior Manager Payments Industry at NAB
"New Payments Platform, What it Means for Businesses & Consumers."
Dianne discussed the outcome of talks between major financial institutions as to how the local payment systems can be improved.In February 2018 a New Payments Platform [‘NPP’] was released by 13 financial institutions, with the potential for smaller institutions to link into it through these larger organisations. The NPP is accessible for any financial system to join.
Under NPP it is no longer necessary to provide your BSB numbers, clients create their own ‘PayID’ which becomes the address for receipt of payments.This new process has a number of key advantages which address the current divide between the way of serving customers and the way of getting paid by customers:
- speed – using this process, payment can be received into an account in less than a minute. This means it is possible to have the money before handing over the goods;
- availability – the process works 24/7. This can change the way small businesses and markets operate since they will no longer need to have cash on hand, or merchant facilities.
- The system is data rich – a lot more information can be attached to the payment, and
- the process provides a simpler way to address payment.
It is recognised that payees may want to stay with credit cards, while payment recipients may want to use the PayID. However, the two systems can run in parallel. NPP will be more useful for the supply chain type of payment rather than merchant payments.
Australia is the 38th country to put in a fast system, but the only one to have a process that involves immediate payment.