
Australia’s new real-time banking payments platform - adrian_mrd
https://www.itnews.com.au/news/australias-new-payments-platform-goes-live-485045
======
djsumdog
Even before this, Australia still had direct person-to-person transfers.
They'd just take a day, and required an account number and name.

I've written about this before, but American is terribly far behind on this:

[https://penguindreams.org/blog/the-american-banking-
system-i...](https://penguindreams.org/blog/the-american-banking-system-is-
still-in-the-1990s/)

The closest thing we have in the US is Zelle, which is not a government
mandated standard (like ACH) but a private standard created by banks and which
only a fraction of banks in the US currently support.

And of course there are services like Venmo/Paypal, but these are private opt-
in services, where as most other countries have this system mandated and fee-
free between banks via their government reserve banks.

~~~
srmatto
The US is in dismal shape compared to the UK and now Australia--And its pretty
infuriating.

Although from what I understand on March 16th, 2018 the US will at least get
same-day ACH. However, it will still be batch processed only two times each
day--During banking hours no less! [https://www.nacha.org/rules/same-day-ach-
moving-payments-fas...](https://www.nacha.org/rules/same-day-ach-moving-
payments-faster-phase-3)

There is a NPR planet money on why the US has such an archaic system:
[https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/10/04/229224964/epis...](https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/10/04/229224964/episode-489-the-
invisible-plumbing-of-our-economy)

Their hypothesis? Unsurprisingly, perverse incentives. Wire transfers in the
US, which usually carry a high fee ($30) are very lucrative for banks so they
don't have much interest in eliminating the need for wire transfers at the
moment, but it appeared that there was growing interest in moving to real-time
eventually.

~~~
stingraycharles
> Wire transfers in the US, which usually carry a high fee ($30)

Is this for real ? This sounds incredibly expensive. We have free next-day
wire transfers within the entire EU, and real-time transfers for free in The
Netherlands. Even my business bank account only charges 2 cents per transfer.

How do Americans wire money to each other when it's so expensive ?

~~~
codeka
They send each other checks. Actual piece-of-paper checks.

To their credit, they've got it to the point where I can take a picture of the
front/back of the check with my smartphone, upload the photos to my bank's
website and deposit it that way, but the first time I did this I felt really
weird about the whole thing...

~~~
djsumdog
On my backlog is to write an app that displays a check on a tablet where you
can put in your details. Then have someone take a photo with their bank app of
your tablet. I bet it would work .. and show how absolutely assine and archaic
we are.

In every other country I lived in, I never ordered checks, or used checks. In
the US, even if I bill pay via my bank, it mails out a physical check to
company it doesn't have an ACH policy with (like landlords)

~~~
thisacctforreal
I imagine some of the pictures are randomly selected for manual review, and
especially any pictures that the bank deems the least bit iffy.

Unless you'd like to hire lawyers to help you with a fraud case, I'd recommend
not taking that our of your backlog.

------
baxtr
Instant payments, aka “instant SEPA” will be available soon also in the EU

[https://www.europeanpaymentscouncil.eu/what-we-do/sepa-
insta...](https://www.europeanpaymentscouncil.eu/what-we-do/sepa-instant-
credit-transfer)

~~~
theBobBob
I couldn't find details on it, but will this system allow for transfers based
on phone number or email or will it still be based on IBAN?

~~~
Double_a_92
I'd actually prefer it if it was just IBAN. No need to entangle my phone and
email into that.

------
sandos
This sounds like the swedish product "swish" which is immensely popular.
Nobody does bank transfers between people, everybody transfers to your mobile
number. So far I think there are no fees for personal use, either, although
they said it would come later a few years ago. Transfers are of course instant
and you can see the recipients name before you send the money, which is a
great pro compared to a bank transfer to an opaque number.

~~~
wowca
Do people really transfer that much money between them on a regular basis?
Everyone was touting this as the selling point for some of the crypto
currencies, but I've always thought this is a non-issue. It's anecdotal but I
can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I needed to transfer
money to a person and not to a company.

~~~
alkonaut
ALL the time. It's the replacement for cash. Looking at the past 6 months in
my history: Split numerous restaurant bills. Paid someone who bought me a
concert ticket. Bought some crap in a flea market. Bought a set of used wheels
for my car. Bought a hotdog at the son's hockey game cafeteria. Bet the office
sports tournament pool. Bought food in a hospital ward. Bought soda in a
vending machine. Of these many happened multiple times and the clear majority
were to individuals. During these 6 months I have not touched cash.

~~~
Gogogogirl
Just asking, because I'm interested. Do you use it to pay Amazon? Your phone
bill? You power provider? These are the areas I (Germany) currently use SEPA
direct debit and would know how SEPA payments is used/replaced in other
countries.

~~~
stefanfisk
utility bills and other regular stuff like that can be delivered
electronically to your bank account in Sweden, such that you just log in and
approve them. domestic online purchases are commonly paid by card, by a direct
bank transfer that's done integrated as part of the checkout, or through
Klarna where your just approve the purchase and then sort it out with them
afterwards.

~~~
Gogogogirl
Nice!

------
qzervaas
The two banks I’ve checked only allow you to use your mobile phone number or
email address as your PayID (CBA and ING).

When paying somebody, when you enter a recipient’s PayID, the bank confirms by
showing the recipient account holder name.

So in effect, they’ve just implemented a nationwide number-to-name lookup
system.

Separate to this, these two banks are pushing it hard. It feels like a land
grab, since a single phone number can only be assigned to a single bank.

~~~
SyneRyder
Westpac appears to be limiting it to mobile phone number, not even allowing
email addresses. I'm okay with giving out an email address, but not my
personal phone number that people can call & buzz me any time of day or night.
I'd rather just give out my BSB / Account Number.

I'm happy to see real-time payments, though. That will make it easier to
bounce money around between savings accounts at different banks, no more
waiting 3 days for EFT to clear.

[1] [https://www.westpac.com.au/faq/payid-what-is-
it/](https://www.westpac.com.au/faq/payid-what-is-it/)

~~~
incompatible
It's not clear to me if the BSB / Account Number or BPAY payments will be in
any way affected by this new system, or if they will remain as slow as ever.

~~~
deecewan
They _should_ be faster, but I doubt it.

~~~
incompatible
The new payment type will be called "Osko", which can only be used with a
PayID. The old payment types will apparently continue to operate the same as
ever.

Banks may offer smaller maximum transaction sizes for Osko, or delay the first
payment to a new account by up to 24 hours, in an attempt to reduce fraud.

------
jslampe
This article woefully undersells this development. As of today, Australia is
the proud new owner of the world's most advanced payment system. This thing
has it all, central directories, fraud sharing services, and an infrastructure
BUILT for access by the private sector. There's some governance items and
constraints here and there, but otherwise this is insanely advanced.

~~~
DJN
Real-time payment platforms that interconnect all the banks in the country are
not new.

Heck, Nigeria rolled out a very advanced one about 7 years ago

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16374597](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16374597)

------
gletard
In India , similar system called IMPS is pretty popular for small to medium
transactions. UPI is also getting popular and it’s based on IMPS

~~~
MarkMc
How does it work? Can I use an Android app to send money? Do I just enter the
recipient's mobile phone number or is there something else that identifies the
recipient?

~~~
gletard
For plain IMPS, you need to use your bank’s App. For UPI, you can use any app
eg google tez, or WhatsApp. One requirement for both is you need to link
mobile number with your bank account and for plain IMPS you need additional id
called MMID for transfer. UPI does not need it. It also has cool feature of
requesting money from other UPI addressses.

------
xstartup
Can anyone post a rough breakdown on how $1B can be spent to build such a
system?

~~~
idonotknowwhy
Look you "myki" on Wikipedia. This sort of thing is normal here in Australia.
I assume it's corruption. So frustrating that I'm paying for all these this
shit.

~~~
zuccs
You misspelled "NBN".

~~~
Whitestrake
I doubt he got them mixed up; myki is a pre-loaded NFC smart card payment
system for public transport in Victoria, Australia. go cards are another
similar system.

NBN is a completely different beast, being an internet carrier and service
wholesaler with ambitious and expensive last-mile infrastructure concerns, for
one thing.

~~~
idonotknowwhy
Correct. I didn't get the mixed up, was just bringing up another example of
stupid spending we do here.

------
jimmy1
Reading about this and some of the comments here and the enthusiasm, it's a
great development for sure.

But I just hope that we don't leave out those who prefer to deal with physical
currency in the name of "progress"

~~~
raisspen
A lot of governments want to do away with physical currency as it is simply
much more difficult to track than electronic transactions. I believe it is one
of the reasons China put a lot of effort in developing their mobile payment
systems.

------
tmpmx132
Mexico has had an instant payment system across all banks for quite q while
now (spei)[1]. Does anyone knows how this compares to that? [1]
[http://www.banxico.org.mx/sistemas-de-
pago/servicios/sistema...](http://www.banxico.org.mx/sistemas-de-
pago/servicios/sistema-de-pagos-electronicos-interbancarios-spei/interbanking-
electronic-payme.html)

------
avicoder
How is it different from UPI?

~~~
incompatible
UPI is apparently something in India and this is something in Australia?

~~~
zaphirplane
How is Australia different from India - +3 funny - oh hang on this isn’t
slashdot damn

------
jaaames
Interesting bit is the 280 characters of test data you can include, enough for
a small amount of JSON.

I worked on a hackathon for NAB where we proposed banks could be an auth
provider for payments that require ID, e.g. Buying a SIM card, signing a
waiver etc at the point of sale

------
jaequery
Did I just read that they spent a billion dollars on it?

~~~
threeseed
Probably collectively.

And has someone who has worked for Australian banks it is probably on the
cheap side.

Many of the core systems that needed upgrading are old and there isn't
necessarily the people around who worked on them. And so there are a lot of
costs that go into upgrading.

~~~
codebolt
It just seems absurd that it should be so complicated and expensive to build a
system which on a basic level is just about maintaining a large table of
numbers (the ledger of bank account balances) and doing simple arithmetic on
it. And I say this as someone who develops banking systems for a living.

I think/hope the banking and financial sector in the future will be much more
lean and optimized, both in terms of systems and management.

~~~
chii
> on a basic level is _just_ about maintaining a large table

The most dangerous word in software development.

------
fiatjaf
This seems like a way to incentivize people to replace use of cash with use of
bank accounts, thus enabling the State and the IRS to better control people
lives.

------
jaimex2
Not sure why it says Commonwealth Bank is the only one open at launch. I'm
with ING and got an email about it being active this morning.

~~~
dawogfather
Commonwealth own ing. They have for a faire while. That's why Commonwealth
customers could use ing ATMs for free back when they still had fees

~~~
ShinTakuya
You're thinking of Bankwest

------
31b3r3t7
[http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/25/business/business-
advanced...](http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/25/business/business-advanced-
online-banking-born-of-necessity.html)

------
sengork
Here's the press release from the Reserve Bank of Australia:

[https://www.rba.gov.au/media-
releases/2018/mr-18-02.html](https://www.rba.gov.au/media-
releases/2018/mr-18-02.html)

------
jakecopp
Does this just boil down to faster BSB/account number transfers between banks?

I feel they're a little to late to the party for PayPal-like payments to a
email or number.

~~~
MattPearce
Yeah, the basic idea of it is faster payments + the ability to transfer to an
email address/phone number/ABN. The value is in it being supported by all the
various banks and being instant, so you can just log into your banking app and
instantly transfer to someone's account using only their email address, for
example.

Source: I work on the account resolution service that is part of this.

~~~
eggsome
Interesting. I am one of (what I assume to be) a very small subset of people
that manged to enter their email address before there was any input
validation. (my account is with one of the big four). Despite using internet
banking my registered email address ends with @127.0.0.1

Would this prevent me receiving payments?

~~~
MattPearce
Ha, that's interesting - validation and normalisation is the responsibility of
the banks so would depend on whether the bank of the person doing the lookup
accepts it as a valid email address

------
duncan_bayne
Meanwhile, I still can't get access to a read only API for my own accounts
(Commonwealth Bank).

------
EADGBE
Is this similar to the Zelle push US banks are, well, pushing for?

~~~
jslampe
No, the NPP is a backend settlement infrastructure used by the central bank.
Zelle would be an example of an overlay service, utility or interface to
engage with the settlement system. The Clearing House's RTP, UK's FPS, or
Singapore's FAST would be more akin to the NPP. NOTE: Zelle is not currently
using RTP, but will likely use it in the coming months or years.

------
therealmarv
Meanwhile in the EU: Wait more than 48 hours between countries and in the same
country wait up to 24 hours. And let's not think about weekends in between ;)

~~~
hocuspocus
Old-school SEPA transfers take only a few hours between modern banks, even
across borders.

SCT inst is gradually coming. Bear in mind the SEPA area covers some 500
million people, it's no small feat compared to much smaller domestic markets
(Nordic European countries have been ahead of Australia in this regard).

~~~
therealmarv
I've never ever seen a SEPA transfer real cross border go through in a few
hours in my life!

~~~
Double_a_92
12 hours was the fastest for me...

~~~
therealmarv
ok, that I've seen I think :)

------
TekMol
They spent one billion Australian Dollars to implement a national system for
instant payments and have yet to convince banks to adopt it? And it forces
users to hand out their phone number or email to strangers?

Given that, Bitcoins $140B market cap does not seem too unreasonable. As it is
international and gives users better privacy controls.

~~~
drodgers
Bitcoin: a bargain at $40 per transaction in fees!

Edit: And several hours to clear

~~~
gruez
>$40 per transaction in fees!

[https://bitcoinfees.earn.com/](https://bitcoinfees.earn.com/)

what?

