Australia’s New Payments Platform (NPP) was publicly launched today. The NPP will initially enable customers of three of the ‘big four’ banks – Commonwealth Bank, National Australia Bank and Westpac – to make payments via a service called PayID, which requires users to enter only the recipients’ mobile phone number or email address. Other financial institutions, including ANZ, will follow. Over the next month more than 60 financial institutions will begin rolling out services to customers.

Swift was awarded the 12-year contract to design, build and operate the platform’s basic infrastructure. The service uses ISO 20022 based messaging.

Philip Lowe, Governor and Chair of the PSB, said, ‘The public launch of the NPP represents the delivery of a major piece of national infrastructure. I would like to thank everyone who has been involved in the NPP project and I look forward to the payment innovations it will make possible and the benefits this will generate for all Australians.’

The Reserve Bank developed new infrastructure, the RITS Fast Settlement Service, to enable the settlement of NPP transactions between financial institutions in real time on a 24/7 basis across exchange settlement accounts at the Reserve Bank.