Are Your Payments Stuck in the '80s?

Australia’s world-class payments system is a foundational component of the digital economy, and the BECS framework has done an incredible job since its inception in the 1980s.

BECS may reliably handle average annual values of more than $15 trillion — the majority of Australian consumer payments by value — but it processes them in batches, and only on business days. Furthermore, it is not able to send complete remittance information. As Governor Bullock noted at the 2023 AusPayNet Summit, "The limited number of characters stems from the number of characters that could be carried on a punch card! Decades on, this is no longer fit for purpose."

Australian payments are undergoing once-in-a-generation modernisation as they migrate across to the designed-for-digital New Payments Platform [NPP].

The New Payments Platform [NPP] is Australia’s real-time payments infrastructure. It was developed via industry collaboration to enable Australian consumers, businesses and government agencies to make digital, A2A payments — with near real-time funds availability to the recipient — at any time. It facilitates the clearing and settlements of real-time data-rich payments for the Australian digital economy.

Use of the NPP continues to grow. A2A payments on the NPP can move and settle in real-time and carry rich data enabling, for example, automatic reconciliation.

The NPP also uses the data-rich ISO 20022 messaging format, which is the new global standard for payments systems.

Payments through BECS can only use BSB and account numbers. By contrast, the NPP incorporates PayTo and the PayID addressing service, allowing payments to be addressed to an email address or phone number, and it also provides a confirmation of payee service. These features help to reduce mistaken payments and combat some scams.