The New Payments Platform (NPP), owned and operated by New Payments Platform Australia Ltd (NPPA) is a national industry-wide real-time payments platform for Australia. As of April 2025, there are over 25 million registered PayIDs.

In 2021, NPP Australia became a wholly owned subsidiary of Australian Payments Plus (AP+) after the ACCC authorised the amalgamation with BPAY Group and eftpos.

History

The new instant payment platform for real-time low-value payments was in response to the Reserve Bank of Australia's Payment System Board's Conclusions to the Strategic Review of the Innovation in Payments System publication.Strategic Review of Innovation in the Payments System: Conclusions Reserve Bank of Australia June 2012 The NPP was announced in July 2013 by the Australian Payments Clearing Association.Industry wide program to develop the "Industry-wide program to develop the New Payments Platform gets underway" Australian Payments Network. Retrieved 8 July 2013. In December 2014, the Program proceeded to the third phase: "design, build and test." In 2015 a contract was signed with SWIFT to design, build and operate the platform.

It took approximately 6 years to implement and became accessible to the general public on 13 February 2018 with the introduction of PayID, an addressing capability, and Osko, the first NPP overlay service, operated by BPAY.

In September 2021, the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) authorised a proposed merger of the New Payments Platform of eftpos Payments Australia and BPAY.Proposed amalgamation of BPAY, eftpos and NPPA Australian Competition & Consumer Commission 9 September 2021

Services

PayTo

The Mandated Payment Service is now known as PayTo. It is a system for enabling "withdrawals" on the NPP whereby businesses to initiate real-time payments from a customers’ bank account. The NPP does not inherently support "withdrawals", so the service provides an overlay allowing the "withdrawing" party to create a payment order and authorisation request. PayTo can also be used by third parties to conduct payments on behalf such as for corporate payroll and accounts payable.

PayID PayID is NPP's addressing service to enable payments. Its PayTo facility allows for payments to be sent by a user to a PayID. The following chart compares PayID mobile payments via NPP to electronic payments, or bank transfers. + Compare PayID/PayTo Bank transfer Transfer Time Less than 1 minute, normallyThe New Payments Platform and Fast Settlement Service Reserve Bank of Australia 20 September 2018 Up to 3 working days Activation Opt-in, via your bank Always Payee ID Phone number, email or ABNPay ID BSB and account number Withdrawals via PayTo Possible (if they have your password) Direct Debit via PayTo, with payee authorisation Possible, but requires payee to cancel Availability 24/7 Banking hours only Full Payee Name Confirmed before approval Not included Transfer description 280 characters (allows emojis) 18 characters Remitter name Personal or business account name 16 characters Change accounts Keep PayID or create new one Same BSB and new account number Switch banks Keep PayID or create new one New BSB and new account number Multiple IDs Use multiple emails Never Pay Overseas In the near future Current

PayID will coexist with the BSB and account number addressing scheme.

Osko Osko is owned and operated by BPAY, and operates on the NPP as an overlay service. It uses PayID as a reference for payments. Payments are instant to accounts that have been transferred to previously.

In 2021, BPAY attributed a change in NPPA strategy (particularly the announcement of MPS, the Mandated Payment Service), as the cause of write-down in the value of their Osko business.

NPP Australia NPP Australia is a non-profit public company established to oversee the operation of the NPP and is owned by 13 shareholders. It is governed by a board of 12 voting Directors, including 3 independent directors, and the RBA.

+ New Payments Platform Australia Limited Shareholders NPP Australia Australia and New Zealand Banking Corporation Australian Settlements Limited Bendigo and Adelaide Bank Limited Citigroup Pty Ltd Commonwealth Bank of Australia Cuscal Limited HSBC Bank Australia Limited Indue Limited ING Australia Macquarie Bank Limited National Australia Bank Limited Westpac Banking Corporation Reserve Bank of Australia

Participant Banks

Financial institutions need to ensure that their NPP services can reliably handle the full range of payments. All NPP Participants must meet availability requirements of no more than two minutes outage per month.

Controversy Online scams PayID has been noted in Australia as a vehicle for online scammers on social media marketplaces.

References