The Reserve Bank of Australia and its Payments System Board announced on Tuesday (Feb. 13) the launch of a new payments infrastructure – called the New Payments Platform (NPP) – that lets customers with accounts at different banks make real-time payments to each other.
According to a press release, the new service went live in November of 2017, supporting fund transfers between employees at different banks. The public launch happened in the early morning of Feb. 13, when the CEO of NPP, Adrian Lovney, made a donation to the Alannah and Madeline Foundation Charity for Children.
Although the platform was created for the needs of Australia, the company said that it has become a global reference point. NPP includes a layered architecture that can support multiple and competitive services, significant data capabilities, an addressing service called PayID that links financial accounts to easily memorized data and real-time settlement via the Reserve Bank of Australia’s Fast Settlement Service.
Over the next month, NPP said more than 60 banks, building societies and credit unions in the country will start rolling out real-time, data-enhanced payment services to customers. NPP noted that many will offer it via Osko, its overlay service.
“The New Payments Platform has a unique layered ‘open access’ design, which allows for different entities to leverage the platform’s functionality in different ways,” said Lovney in the press release. “For payments experiences, the platform’s speed will be key, as well the conveniences offered by the PayID addressing service and the data that can be transmitted alongside payment. We see the platform’s data capability as a potential boon for future business applications.”
Lovney noted that the NPP has been designed and built with the future in mind, and that the companies gearing up to roll out services will do so in their own timeframes.
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