Westpac Institutional Bank
Government services will be among the big winners under the New Payments Platform initiative that enables faster payments and smarter use of consumer data.
Imagine flood victims getting emergency payments from government in a matter of seconds.
Such a scenario is now more than just a pipedream.
Revolutionary Change
A revolutionary change in payment processing is underway in Australia, courtesy of the New Payments Platform (NPP), which allows government departments and businesses to deliver faster and more efficient payments.
The NPP can be considered as one of the most important pieces of public infrastructure in Australia’s history – right up there with the Snowy Hydro scheme.
Westpac General Manager (Global Transaction Services) Di Challenor said that the NPP marks a massive change in Australia’s payments industry and offers significant opportunities to improve the efficiency of payments for governments, businesses and citizens.
“With the NPP,we are moving from a norm of up to three-day payments to payments in real-time, with close to immediate funds availability to the recipient. The feedback so far has been extremely positive,” she said.
What is the NPP?
Launched earlier this year, the NPP is a world-leading platform for payments innovation that represents the culmination of years of collaboration and investment from 13 Australian financial institutions, including the Reserve Bank of Australia and Westpac.
It has been designed to drive a fast, flexible and data-rich payments system for Australian governments, businesses and consumers to meet all their payments needs, and follows – but improves upon – similar initiatives previously launched in markets such as Singapore and the United Kingdom.
Key Feature
A key feature of the NPP is the use of a PayID whereby customers link an easy-to-remember identifier, such as an email address, mobile number or ABN, to their bank account so that they can receive payments without using a BSB and account number.
If they change their bank, all they have to do is transfer their PayID to their new bank account.
Westpac New Ventures and DigitalPeter Pallister sad that he and his colleagues are proud to have played a key role in developing the NPP.
“The focus to date has been on seamlessly switching to the new platform and enhancing anti-fraud capabilities. All of this has meant we have a very secure and capable service for our customers. It has very much been a team effort,” he said.
The above Report is a highly edited version. For full text, please visit www.indiannewslink.co.nz
