cheques – APCA Blog

Milestones Report, May 2017: Cheque use plunges in the digital economy

Payments Direction — Thu, 08 Jun 2017 22:58:09 +0000

Our latest Milestones Report looks at the payment choices Australian make. It’s clear that the vast majority are moving away from cash and cheques faster than ever before. This is happening because widespread use of new technology combined with a…

Infographic: The Digital Economy November 2016

Alice Markie — Fri, 25 Nov 2016 00:23:03 +0000

Cheques now represent just 1.2% of all non-cash transactions as Australians show a clear preference for electronic payment methods. Over the past 10 years, cheque use has declined by nearly 73% and the rate of decline is accelerating. Simultaneously, cash…

RBA data suggests 40% of credit card values in Australia are now card-not-present

Brad Pragnell — Fri, 06 Mar 2015 04:07:58 +0000

Change is pretty well the only constant when it comes to consumer payments. In Australia, we have seen a rapid uptake in contactless card use as well as increased use of online payments. Conversely, we have seen a rapid decline in personal cheque use as well as an ever-diminishing use of cash.

Monitoring changing payment usage can be notoriously difficult. The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) and APCA collect and publish statistics from industry participants on cheques, cards and electronic payments as well the number of ATMs and POS devices. However, other types of usage such as cash use and the split between card-present (point-of-sale) and card-not-present (internet, telephone and mail) transactions are more difficult to track. Consumers and merchants don’t regularly record or report their own payments activity – meaning we only get a partial picture of how payments use is evolving.

The return of collaboration

Chris Hamilton — Wed, 14 Jan 2015 01:35:26 +0000

As I think about payments developments in 2014, what strikes me is that the payments world is now in a phase of collaborative systemic innovation, the like of which we have not seen in 20 years.

I have written about the cyclical nature of network evolution before. It’s all about network effects - ie the reality that, in payments as in other network industries, the net value of a service is proportional to the number of other people using the service. Wherever there are large network effects, an evolutionary balance must be struck continuously between service innovation based on the existing network, and systemic innovation to enhance the network itself. The former uses new technology and/or new business thinking to improve services to end users without trying to change the network itself - because this is expensive and hard to do. Service innovation tends to be competitive in nature. A good example is Square, which innovates in the merchant/customer interaction by riding the rails of the existing card schemes.

The latter - systemic innovation - seeks to upgrade the underlying network so that new and better services can ultimately be delivered to end users. The current global enthusiasm for real-time payments is largely in this category - building new networks to (eventually) deliver better services. Because this needs a large number of existing participants to coordinate in upgrading their technology and operations at the same time, it is typically collaborative more than competitive, and government often has an important role to play.

Payments World USA

Chris Hamilton — Tue, 15 Apr 2014 23:31:38 +0000

In April, I took a quick trip to Disney World...well, kind of. The annual conference of NACHA, APCA's equivalent body in the USA, was held at Disney World's home: Orlando, Florida. Around 2,200 bankers turned up to hear three days of presentations on the state of US payments - and possibly catch a few rides. I hope they had some fun amongst the work, because these are stressful times for US payment providers. Having weathered the GFC with tightened budgets, US bankers are acutely conscious of new payments system developments in other countries and pressure from the US Federal Reserve to follow suit or be left behind; but they are a long way from agreeing amongst themselves what is to be done, and who will pay. My small contribution was to outline the policy logic behind Australia's New Payments Platform (NPP) proposal as a comparative example. There was much interest.

UK payments system self-regulation under scrutiny

Chris Hamilton — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 00:30:58 +0000

Last month, the UK government published a consultation paper on “Opening up UK payments”. According to the paper, “the self-regulation of financial services…has been discredited.” Say what? The world over, payments systems have been almost entirely self-regulated, so this is a big call. The evidence cited in the paper for this includes the LIBOR-rate fixing scandal and the failed attempt to eliminate UK cheque clearing. And of course, there is enduring rancor over the public bailout of UK banks during the global financial crisis.

The year ahead

Chris Hamilton — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 02:53:58 +0000

Many of us are returning from the holiday break newly resolved on self-improvement – give up this, lose that, do better at the other thing. APCA too is resolved on self-improvement. Back in August 2011, we gave a public commitment to reform APCA’s own governance arrangements so as to make it a fit vehicle for more inclusive, stronger self-governance of the payments system. This is currently a hot topic for the Reserve Bank, and has been one for APCA for quite some time as well.

So, next month, in February, we hope to be talking about a new model for how APCA works. This has to fit in with the views and needs of many different people and organisations, not least the public policymakers, so we know it probably won’t be a short conversation. But we hope it will be a successful one.

A tale of two countries

Chris Hamilton — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 06:26:29 +0000

In Sydney in early June, we launched our consultation on the future of cheques. Our proposition is simple: based on long-term trends, cheques are steadily disappearing from the Australian community. That means problems down the track for those who rely on them, as they increasingly find their payment counterparties don't want to use or accept a cheque, even if they do. This consultation is not about cheque clearing at all: it's about making sure people have what they need.

In the same week, on the other side of the world, the House of Lords in London began an acrimonious debate on the same issue: the future of cheques in the UK. The UK Payments Council has had closure of the paper clearing system on the agenda for several years, but they have not been able to win community support for the need to change.

Context is everything

Chris Hamilton — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 05:54:34 +0000

I recently had the rare and valuable chance to take a deep dive into someone else's payments pool. Such comparisons are always refreshing, not to mention instructive.

The Canadian Government has appointed a Task Force to review the Canadian payments system, and the Task Force has embarked on a series of intensive workshops with senior people from across payments – financial institutions, schemes, corporate and government users, merchants, consumer groups and others. They kindly invited me to participate in a 3-day workshop that ranged widely over the future payments landscape as they are seeing it in Canada. This was, I have to say, an impressive effort.