Payments System Board – APCA Blog

Budget Night 2017: Initial view from payments

Payments Direction — Tue, 09 May 2017 22:33:08 +0000

Merric Foley, our Policy Manager, was on the ground in Canberra for the 2017 Budget, which contained a number of measures directly affecting the payments industry. Of particular interest is new funding for Treasury to undertake an independent review into the…

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…

Of payment regulators and payments councils

Chris Hamilton — Thu, 21 Aug 2014 04:56:37 +0000

Try Googling "Payments Council", at least from Australia, and the first entry you get is the UK Payments Council home page, trumpeting its Faster Payments service, its mobile to mobile payments facility "Paym" and its automated account switching service. The next four entries relate to the joint RBA/APCA consultation on, and establishment of, an Australian Payments Council, which is approaching completion with an inaugural meeting later this year. One might be forgiven for assuming that Australia is in the process of establishing the same kind of body that already exists, and appears to be doing quite a good job, in the UK.

Now try Googling "Payment Systems Regulator". The first four entries relate to the UK development of a new regulator with extensive powers over retail payment systems. The fifth entry is the home page of RBA's Payments System Board, established more than 15 years ago with (rather less extensive) powers to regulate Australian payment systems. Again, one might be forgiven for assuming that the UK was in the process of establishing a regulatory framework on the long-standing and, according to the Financial System Inquiry (FSI), successful Australian model.

Both these assumptions would be wrong. Beware the besetting sin of an information-rich age: analysis by search engine.

Fast payments – the difference a year makes

Chris Hamilton — Wed, 22 Jan 2014 15:11:40 +0000

This time last year, I reported on the lodgement of an industry proposal to develop new real-time payments architecture for Australia. Rashly, I suggested that:

- The Payments System Board would back the industry proposal (they did);
- APCA would publish the proposal in full, so everyone knew what we were on about (we did); and
- Industry collaboration on the new architecture would need to get going quickly if we were to have a shot at meeting the challenging timeframes set by RBA (and that happened too!)

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.

Payments system self-governance: striking the balances

Chris Hamilton — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 06:39:48 +0000

"The payments system is built on networks, which means that a certain amount of coordination and collaboration is essential for it to function and develop over time. The challenge is to encourage stakeholder collaboration that supports innovation and competition while discouraging collective or individual behaviours that are detrimental to payments system users."

No one at APCA wrote this paragraph - it comes from the final report of the Canadian Government's Payments System Review. The thing is, we could have written it. It expresses APCA''s philosophy as the payment system self-regulatory body.