consumer behaviour – APCA Blog

How Australians Make and Take Payments

Andy White — Wed, 20 Sep 2017 06:16:49 +0000

The RBA recently published its 2016 Consumer Payments Survey. Key findings were that survey participants made 37% of their payments with cash (compared to 69% in 2007) and 52% of their payments with a card (compared to 26% in 2007). This…

Payments Industry Policy and Government Round-up

Merric Foley — Thu, 22 Jun 2017 05:14:51 +0000

In recent months, the Commonwealth Government has announced a number of initiatives that touch on the world of payments. We are pleased to be working in a collaborative capacity with the government on the topics outlined below. If you would…

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…

CEO Speaks at NORA: Changes Currently Impacting the Payments Industry

Payments Direction — Fri, 05 May 2017 02:21:38 +0000

As part of the recent National Online Retailers Association (NORA) Leader Lunch Series, Australian Payments Network CEO Dr. Leila Fourie spoke about how technological advancements and consumer expectations are changing the future of retail payments. Australia is fast becoming a less-cash…

Why Shared Ledger Technology won’t free us from human fallibility

Chris Hamilton — Tue, 12 Apr 2016 23:46:57 +0000

In my previous post, I discussed Bitcoin’s desire to remove trust from the payments process. I now want to look at the nature of financial trust: What does it mean to say we “trust” a third party? Is trust of…

We need to talk about Bitcoin’s trust issues

Chris Hamilton — Wed, 06 Apr 2016 22:47:41 +0000

I recently tackled Satoshi Nakamoto’s original Bitcoin text, which has mythical status amongst devotees of shared ledger technology. It is a paragon of clarity on what Bitcoin is really all about. According to its spiritual father, the purpose of Bitcoin…

Cloudsurfing and payments

Chris Hamilton — Wed, 11 Nov 2015 05:50:38 +0000

Many in our industry are watching in fascination as the United States inches towards a real-time payments solution. There are three recent developments: the Fed’s Faster payments task force has defined effectiveness criteria for a new payments system, NACHA has received the Fed’s approval for its same day ACH rule, and most interestingly, The Clearing House – the high value clearing network for the larger banks – has announced a letter of intent with Vocalink to develop a new real-time system.

Judging by the Chicago Payments Symposium hosted by the Chicago Fed last month, there is still nothing like consensus on the “right” outcome, and the US is still some years from new mainstream payments services that are “cloud ready”.

Australia providing ideas to help bring digital payments to the poor

Brad Pragnell — Tue, 06 Oct 2015 23:23:01 +0000

Does Australia’s New Payments Platform hold some lessons for developing countries looking to design their own digital payments system? The Level One Project Guide, released earlier this year by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, would suggest so.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is one of the world’s most influential NGOs. It supports numerous initiatives, primarily aimed at health and economic development in developing countries. An area of interest for the Foundation has been financial inclusion, with a particular focus on how new digital technologies, such as mobile phones, can be used to provide low cost and accessible payment services to the poor.

New research highlights an increasingly “banked” world

Brad Pragnell — Wed, 24 Jun 2015 05:55:02 +0000

Billions of people, primarily in developing countries, have historically had neither bank accounts nor access to electronic payments. When saving and making payments, they have had to rely on cash.

This is rapidly changing. According to the recently-released World Bank Global Findex, in 2014, 62 per cent of the adults worldwide had a formal account with a financial institution or mobile money service – a dramatic increase from 51 per cent in 2011.

This upswing in financial inclusion has been facilitated by a growing middle class in many developing countries and easily available technology, in particular the mobile phone. However this growth has taken a different path in different regions.

Why does it take up to a day to process my internet payment?

Chris Hamilton — Fri, 05 Jun 2015 02:21:31 +0000

The use of online banking websites and mobile banking apps has increased a lot in Australia. We have one of the fastest uptakes in the world of that sort of technology. One of the side effects of this is that people are now much more aware than they used to be of how quickly a payment they are expecting is going to hit their account. And that’s led to a lot of discussion and chatter about how quickly payments take place.