Our favourite reads

Need for Speed: How Instant Ad Hoc Payments Future-Proof Enterprise Relationships (November, 2024)
From vendor pay to gig workers, enterprises are merging into the fast lane for payments. And as enterprises adopt models that rely on agile, ad hoc transactions, instant payments, once considered an option for specific payment scenarios, are now emerging as a central pillar of enterprise payment strategies. More here.

Tech Council CEO Damian Kassabgi on the Policy Agenda (July, 2024)
Kassabgi used the organisation’s flagship event in Canberra to highlight the massive economic opportunity presented by the adoption of AI-based products and services, and to light a fire under the policy response needed to help build an AI-capable workforce. More here.

Real-Time Payments in 1000 Words (June, 2024)
Real-time payments are a critical but often misunderstood trend in global payments. This note explains how they work, what catalysed their recent growth, and why some networks are more successful than others. More here.

Australia and NPP: a real-time payments revolution (January, 2024)
Jordan Lawrence, co-founder and Chief Growth Officer of Volt, discusses Australia’s New Payments Platform (NPP), its effect on RTP, and the benefits for businesses and consumers. More here.

AP+ & Thoughtworks Team to Fuel PayTo Adoption (September, 2024)
Thoughtworks, a global technology consultancy, has joined Australian Payments Plus (AP+), Australia’s domestic payments organisation operating the BPAY, eftpos and NPP payment schemes, to develop new customer experience industry guidelines for PayTo. More here.

Volt introduces PayTo payments in Australia (April, 2024)
Volt launched its secure, PayTo-based payment solution for its retail customers in Australia. Through this online digital payment solution, the company intends to simplify the payment experience for customers, eliminate credit card surcharges, and enable retailers to receive payments instantly. More here.

2024 will be the year retailers wake up to safer, faster payments – or fall behind (December, 2023)
At a time where the cost of living remains stubbornly high, businesses are feeling the pinch more than ever. To hedge against this, many are adopting surcharges and forwarding those card processing fees onto consumers—putting more pressure on everyday Australians. It’s a ripple effect that only hurts the consumer in the end. More here.

Woolworths rolls out a big change to the way people shop (May, 2023)
The supermarket has become the first major company to offer customers an option to link their bank account directly to its app, using PayTo functionality introduced by Australia’s new payments platform. More here.

What would it take to make the pay-by-bank option a no-brainer? (November, 2024)
The last big leap in card payments happened only a couple of years ago when the missing incentive for consumers to go contactless at the point of sale was readily supplied by the pandemic. More here.

Generation Pay-By-Bank: Why Gen Z and Millennials Hold the Key to Widespread Adoption (October, 2024)
Pay-by-bank is carving out a niche in the consumer payments space. Incentives may be the hook needed to draw in new customers. Certain consumers report increased interest in using it when offered discounts and cash-back rewards. More here.

Fintech Lender Plenti Clients Can Make Additional Loan Repayments with NAB Pay-By-Bank Solution (July, 2024)
Customers of Plenti have a new way to make additional loan repayments with National Australia Bank’s (NAB) pay-by-bank solution, which enables PayTo transactions. More here.

Banked and NAB Partner to Accelerate Pay-By-Bank Adoption in Australia (May, 2024)
Leading global fintech Banked and National Australia Bank (NAB) have launched a new partnership to accelerate the number of Australian merchants adopting and integrating account-to-account (A2A) payments solutions. More here.

Zepto Blazes a Trail in Account-Based NPP Payments (September, 2024)
Australia is on the cusp of a digital revolution that will transform its financial services. BECS, used for electronic debit and credit transactions, is in the process of being phased out, and is targeted for retirement by 2030. InnovationAus discuss the organisation leading the charge in the migration to the NPP (hint: it's us). More here.

AP+ Lays Out Priorities for 'Once-in-a-Generation' BECS Migration (August, 2024)
AP+, which oversees Australia’s real-time payment rails the New Payments Platform, has laid out its program of works to progress its and Australian businesses’ transition from the nation’s legacy payments transaction infrastructure, the Bulk Electronic Clearing System (BECS). More here.

The continued migration of payments from BECS to the NPP (January, 2024)
Just like when a date was set for the end of Australian analogue TV in December 2013, a target date of 2030 has been set for the decommissioning of Australia's legacy BECS framework.  More than one third of account-to-account payments are processed today using the NPP so the migration from BECS to NPP has been occurring for some time. But there is still work to do to support ongoing migration. More here.

Modernising Australia's Payments System (December, 2023)
The payments landscape is changing rapidly, with new business models and technologies entering the space. The industry is also moving from legacy systems towards new platforms that can deliver payment services that are faster, safer and more convenient. This speech, delivered by Michele Bullock, Governor, Australian Payments Network Summit, Sydney, addresses the changing landscape. More here.

Chemist Warehouse pioneer Jack Gance sets out on new payments frontier (April, 2025)
Creating cost-effective choices for consumers while forging business success is nothing new for Chemist Warehouse co-founder Jack Gance. As special guest at a recent NAB Transaction Banking event series, he looks at a new way to pay for businesses and customers. More here.

How real-time payments may future-proof Australia’s superannuation industry (March, 2025)
Real-time payments could be transforming superannuation, and potentially enhancing security, engagement, and efficiency as retirement numbers grow. More here.

CLEAR Partners With Stripe to Power Billing and Payments for Millions of Customers (March, 2025)
With Stripe managing both one-time payments and recurring subscriptions, CLEAR has achieved higher conversion rates. Stripe’s card account updater and network tokenisation help CLEAR protect revenue, increase authorisation rates, and reduce churn caused by changes in customers’ credit cards. More here.

NAB helps Amazon bypass credit cards with new way for customers to pay (January, 2025)
Amazon has switched on a new way for customers to pay, tapping NAB to establish direct connections with bank accounts in a move that will help the retailing giant reduce credit card acceptance fees. In a first for the Australian online retailers, Amazon recently added PayTo to its checkout, allowing customers to pay straight from their bank account instead of with a credit or debit card. More here.

Use Cases Beyond Claims Moves Insurance Industry to Instant Payments (August, 2024)
There’s been a 7% increase, year over year, in instant payments used as a disbursement option in the insurance industry. Overall, 33% of consumers receiving insurance disbursements get them instantly — which poses the question; what’s going on with the other two thirds? More here.

Card Payments Are Slow, Costly, and Dying—Here's What Consumers Are Turning to Instead (February, 2025)
Rising card fees and chargebacks create unnecessary costs, while customers now expect instant, seamless payment experience. Pay-by-bank is the smarter alternative, and it’s growing impossible for businesses to ignore. More here.

Australians lose nearly $1 billion a year in card surcharges (March, 2024)
Unlike in the UK and the European Union where card surcharges are banned, retailers in Australia are allowed to recoup their payment costs through surcharging their customers, as long as they are not making a profit out of it. RBA governor Michele Bullock has threatened to mandate Least-cost routing [LCR] if the industry does not meet the target of 80 per cent uptake by the middle of the year. More here.

The Indomitable Nature of Bank Cards (March, 2024)
In the continually evolving landscape of banking and finance, one element has remained surprisingly resilient against the tides of change: the humble bank card. Since their inception in the 1950s, cards have woven into the fabric of global commerce, becoming ubiquitous in wallets and online transactions. More here.

“It’s not about killing cards,” says founder of payments startup Banked (February, 2024)
Banked has inked a deal with US financial tech firm FIS aimed at driving new pay-by-bank offerings for consumers and businesses in the US. More here.

Adyen Processing Volumes Jump 22% as Digital Payments Surge (February, 2025)
Adyen’s second-half 2024 results took note of the widespread embrace of solutions to enable omnichannel commerce, and demand for a broad range of payment options across several global markets. More here.

9 in 10 Companies Struggle with Payment Operations Even as Instant Economy Demands Greater Efficiency, Modern Treasury Survey Finds (January, 2025)
Modern Treasury recently released survey results showing that the vast majority of companies continue to struggle with payment operations — even as the instant economy demands greater efficiency — leading to higher risk and operational cost, wasted employee time, and greater risk of audit errors. More here.

5 payments predictions from research firm Forrester (November, 2024)
Worldwide cash use will plummet next year, even as the U.S. clings to cash at its peril, research firm Forrester predicts. Meanwhile, business-to-business M&A touching the industry will pick up. More here.

The Past Decade Transformed Payments, But Wait for the Next 10 Years (March, 2024)
Most of us can see that technology holds the promise to transform the way financial services are provided to individuals and businesses. Technology has improved financial services, but not transformed how we make payments, borrow, lend, and manage our investments. But the simultaneous availability of new data sets, ubiquitous smart phones, cloud computing, and even digital currency protocols fundamentally change how financial processes could be organized. More here.

5 Key Takeaways from Trump’s Payments Modernisation Initiative (March, 2025)
Adoption of FedNow and The Clearing House’s RTP is increasing, as are consumer expectations for faster fund transfers. A recent Executive Order stipulates the move to “fast, electronic payments,” which will change the expectations of underbanked and elderly populations that rely on government monetary benefits. More here.

Missing Link: How small Japanese stores are using digital payments (March, 2025)
Japan was once the home of cash. This is still partly the case, but not only. A short tour of Tokyo's outskirts shows why. More here.

Money20/20 Takeaways: Instant Payments Lead the Way Amid Industry Optimism and AI Remains Hot Topic (June, 2024)
As the lights dimmed on Money20/20 Europe, the show concluded with a notable takeaway: instant payments are seen as the biggest opportunity for growth, outpacing digital wallets, reward schemes, and other growth areas. More here.

Global Real-Time Payments Surged 42% in 2023 (May, 2024)
2023 was a banner year for real-time payments, with global transaction volumes rising 42% YoY to 266.2 billion, according to a new report. The report said the strong results set the stage for a period of more sustainable growth. It projected a 17% compound annual growth rate for RTP transactions through 2028. More here.