digital payment – 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…

International Perspectives: Payments UK on the Digital Economy

Alice Markie — Wed, 21 Sep 2016 00:16:55 +0000

This week we had an in depth discussion with Tim Yudin, Payments UK’s Director of Design and Delivery, on the future of payments and how the payments industry is adapting to the digital economy to meet user needs in the UK. Here…

Shared Ledger Technology and the snapshot problem

Chris Hamilton — Wed, 20 Apr 2016 23:25:07 +0000

I’ve talked before about how user trust in service providers is still necessary for Shared Ledger Technology (SLT), but I think the question about trust in central third parties is harder to analyse. By “central third party” I mean anyone…

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…

Perspectives on the Australian Payments Plan

Alice Markie — Wed, 03 Feb 2016 01:26:11 +0000

Last month’s release of the Australian Payments Plan (APP) signals big changes for the Australian economy – but what does it actually mean? Watch: Mark Birrell, Chair of the Australian Payments Council, explains what the Australian Payments Plan is and…

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.