PayTo A Real-Time
Payments Revolution

PayTo was developed by New Payments Platform Australia [NPPA] — part of Australian Payments Plus [AP+] — in collaboration with the industry. It is a service offered by Australian banks, financial institutions and payment service providers like Zepto.

01 Businesses set up a ‘PayTo agreement’ with a customer. This spells out how much — and when — the customer authorises the business to debit their account.

02 The PayTo agreement is then sent to the customer’s bank or financial institution, and presented in their internet or mobile banking app for authorisation.

03 Once the customer authorises the agreement within their internet or mobile banking app, the business can commence debiting their account in accordance with the agreed terms.

Very. When a PayTo agreement is created, the account is validated in real-time. And because PayTo payments have to be authorised from within the payer's online banking or app, there's the security that comes with bank-grade technology and safety. Businesses can be confident that the customer account is valid, and the customer has approved the PayTo agreement themselves.

Real-time notifications confirm whether the payment was settled or failed with granular reason codes (e.g. AM04 - The specified Payer Customer Account has insufficient funds).

Yes. While it's easy to describe it simply as digital, real-time direct debit for recurring payments, PayTo is much more than that.

PayTo payments can also be one-off or ad-hoc like in e-commerce or in-app contexts. Its always-on nature means PayTo can be a great way to improve the efficiency of outsourced functions like accounts payable and payroll — Zepto's partnership with OZEDI is a brilliant example of this. Interoperable with PEPPOL, PayTo can even support e-invoicing, reducing payment times and transforming procure-to-pay processes.

By design, whatever the use case, PayTo's pre-authorised payments are collected in real-time and funds are immediately settled in the recipient’s bank account.

Australians have been using PayID since 2018. Like PayTo, PayID was developed by New Payments Platform Australia [NPPA], part of Australian Payments Plus [AP+].

PayID lets users link easy-to-remember identifiers, such as their phone number or email address, to their bank accounts. It's a bit like giving a bank account a unique nickname. Users can then provide their PayID, instead of their BSB and account number, to people or organisations they wish to receive payments from in real-time.

An important benefit of PayID is the 'payee confirmation' step. The individual or business name associated with a PayID is shown to the payer so they can be sure their payment is going to the right person or business.

There are many differences between PayID and PayTo payments, but a simple place to start is to consider how each of these payments are initiated. PayID payments are 'push' payments initiated by a payer. Conversely, PayTo payments — like direct debit — are typically a 'pull' payment initiated by the payee. In this way, PayTo payments are collected from the payer's bank account.

And unlike PayID, more than simply being a way to label [or 'address'] bank accounts, PayTo is a completely new way for Australian consumers to pre-authorise real-time payments from their bank accounts. It is a major new pillar of Australia's payments infrastructure.

Yes. PayTo payments can be processed using either BSB & account number, or PayID [phone number, email, ABN or organisation identifier] details.

PayTo agreements contain the information and data required to support easy matching and reconciliation.

Notifications are generated when a PayTo agreement is paused, amended or cancelled, providing the insight needed to engage timely and maximise payment success.

Yes, they can opt-out of moving their agreement across to PayTo.