The New Payments Platform, also known as the NPP, is Australia’s innovative payments infrastructure, developed to make payment transactions quicker, easier and smarter for businesses and consumers alike. This means payments can be made in line with the always-on nature of today’s digital lifestyle.
The new platform allows for real-time payment clearing and settlement between participating Australian banks and is designed to incorporate data-rich messages. Its purpose is to take the pain out of moving money in Australia.
The NPP is a platform that enables real-time clearing and settlement for simple or complex payment solutions, between people and businesses. Payments are simplified through the use of a PayID, and are made richer through the inclusion of additional information such as written text or links to other documents.
The introduction of the NPP means an increase in payment options - adding to the methods already in place, such as BPAY®, RTGS, credit/debit cards, cash, cheques and direct entry. While these existing methods will still remain, it’s anticipated that this new real-time payments system will eventually become the preferred payment option due to its enhanced features and overall benefit to businesses and consumers.
Over time, the platform is expected to continue to evolve to meet the ever-changing needs of the market.
The NPP has been collaboratively developed by New Payments Platform Australia Ltd (NPPA) in collaboration with 13 founding financial institutions as well as a number of others who are connected by way of these 13 institutions.
The 13 institutions are:
Above all else, this new payments platform is designed to deliver payment speed, with the promise that both parties in a transaction can access funds in less than one minute.
The fast payment happens as a result of three separate components working together:
A PayID is an easy-to-remember identifier such as an email address, that is set up to link to your bank account.
Note that you do not need a PayID in order to take advantage of fast payments over the NPP. A PayID can however come in handy as it makes your details as the fund recipient, easier for the customer to remember.
PayID doesn’t replace your standard BSB or account number - it’s a linked ID that you can provide to avoid the hassle of having to remember or to provide those numbers.
Osko is a technology that works with NPP and acts as an enabler to move money rapidly from one account to another. A new product created by BPAY, Osko streamlines the transfer of funds.
You can use an email address. The Zai team can then set this up on your behalf as part of your integration process so that you can receive funds to the account connected to that PayID.
This fast payment technology gives you the ability to upgrade your customers’ payment experiences as well as making back-end processing more efficient and cost effective for your business. Key benefits are outlined in the below table.
The NPP means fast, simple and secure payments between your business and the consumer. Before it was invented, if a consumer wanted to transfer money to a business it could take up to three business days. Now, they can make payments instantly, and best of all, they can do it without having to remember a BSB and account number or a BPAY code.
And because NPP payments are subject to the Reserve Bank’s current real-time fraud screening and detection capabilities, consumers and businesses can trust that their money is safe.
If your answer is yes for any of the below questions then the likelihood is that your business will benefit from using NPP.
Businesses can use Zai to accept payments from consumers or other businesses through the NPP and benefit from:
Businesses receive many payments in a single day and needing a person or team to manage this inflow creates considerable burden. With the Zai API, payouts can be automated and triggered as and when they happen throughout the day. This means payments can be made without being added to overnight batches or managed by a person or team - they’re instant.
NPP transactions have been growing steadily since its launch, with over 2 million PayIDs created as at the end of September 2019, and over 35 million payments worth approximately $30 billion sent through the platform.
The business benefit of using faster payments, outweighs all the other means of payment which are either slow or much more expensive. As a result, it is thought that the NPP will continue to phase out direct-entry payments, particularly for transactions that are time sensitive.
PayID is the name given to the addressing service that allows the use of an alternate identifier when receiving or making payments, instead of relying on knowing a BSB and account number. A PayID is created by linking an eligible bank account to a unique identifier such as an email address.
PayID makes it possible to:
Osko is a service from payments platform BPAY, which was launched in February 2018. It's designed to move funds between individuals or businesses in real-time using the NPP infrastructure network. In other words Osko acts as the vehicle that moves money rapidly across the NPP. The Zai API provides key information on which bank accounts are sending and receiving the money to guarantee a faster and safer transaction.
Zai's API communicates with the banks and your organisation's platform as well as with Osko and the NPP letting them know the amount of money to be moved from the payer to the recipient's account.
These are bank accounts with financial institutions that have rolled out NPP to support faster payments to and from their customers’ accounts.
If a bank account is not NPP-reachable, Zai will send the payment via the traditional Direct Credit.
No, the channel for your customers to send and receive NPP payments is no different to now. They would send money using internet banking (via a browser or an app). Similarly, when money is received, they can check their account balance using internet banking.
For pay ins into your business, customers send payments to your registered PayID. For payouts, payments are made to your customers' NPP-enabled bank account.
Zai's API notifies your business with the status of the payment.
The Zai team can do all of this on your behalf with Real Time Payments. As part of the integration process we set up your PayID if you choose to use one and set your business up so you can start taking advantage of faster payments.
You can send payments using the the NPP if:
No, but your customer’s bank account must be NPP-reachable. If it isn't, they can't make payment to a PayID. And they won't be able to receive a real-time payment (instead they will receive via the traditional direct credit overnight).
Insights
Rebuilding the plane, while still flying it. Our journey on building our data platform from scratch.Find out how Assembly took an eight year old monolithic platform that was slow, manual, and costly and built a fully scalable digital platform that connects all the data dots across our business. Now, we get the big picture view, allowing us to holistically see how our business is running.
Company
Assembly’s Hack Day 2021: Tiny Care Slack BotHaving been through more than a year in lockdown, the objective of this year’s Hack Day was to provide an opportunity for the Product & Tech teams to come together and collaborate on new ideas (outside of payments), learn, and simply have fun!
Insights
5 scaling considerations for finance teamsAs a company works at a frenetic pace to meet the challenges of scaling up, the finance team plays a vital role in working alongside the management team and the wider organisation to define and execute the business's strategy. Finance’s role in capturing and analysing financial data is central to these efforts, as using data-driven insights to guide strategic business decisions becomes the norm.
Learn how Zai's platform can support your value proposition, and provide a competitive edge in your market. Get in touch today.
Contact Sales
