It’s crazy that it can take up to three working days to transfer money between customers of different banks, considering it is done electronically and doesn’t involve any physical cash changing hands. Weekends are also out, despite this making zero sense.
Soon this system will be a relic of the past, as the four big banks and roughly 50 smaller institutions team up for the NPP – a $1 billion project that aims to erase this gap in processing payments. It will also remove the need to provide an account number and BSB, instead using a single PayID.
The system will be introduced after the Australia Day break.
CEO of NPP Australia, Adrian Lovney, said the option will be available to a number of customers from next month.
“All of the banks that are participating are moving in absolute lockstep and absolute unison through the final stage of testing, and we anticipate a strong take-up and a strong participation at launch.
“When people come to work after Australia Day, the platform will commence rolling out to the public at large.”
Of course, such a system is more susceptible to fraud, which Lovney acknowledged to SMH.
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“With any new system that is introduced, you will see a spike in activity as people think about how they can take advantage of the change, but banks will continue to put in place systems behind the scenes to try to protect customers from being tricked.”
This is more happy news for Aussie bankers, after the four big banks announced a few weeks back they would be scrapping ‘foreign ATM fees’.
