Undertakings given to the ACCC ahead of last year’s big payments merger as well as items on the Reserve Bank payments system agenda mean that Australian Payments Plus had a substantial to-do list even before it opened its doors in February, but its chief executive Lynn Kraus says there is plenty of scope to pursue the organisation’s own strategic priorities.
These include developing a standard digital identity for financial transactions, turning eftpos’s digital wallet Beem into a serious competitor in that space, building the New Payments Platform’s share of payments to 50 per cent over the next five years and working more closely with fintechs to deliver service innovation.
AP+ is the product of the merger of BPAY Group, eftpos Payments Australia and NPP Australia, which was approved by the ACCC last September.
The new entity commenced operations on February 1 and Kraus came on board in March.
To head off opposition to the merger, mainly from retailers and other merchants, the merger parties offered a court enforceable undertaking to the ACCC.
Under the undertaking AP+ will ensure that eftpos will do everything in its control to make least cost routing available for four years, and ensure the eftpos scheme and eftpos card issuing and acceptance infrastructure will be maintained for three years.
It is also committed to ensuring that BPAY, eftpos and NPPA agree to an industry standard for payment with QR codes.
In addition to these commitments, the Reserve Bank has some items on its payments agenda that will require input from AP+. These include encouraging greater take-up and use of NPP Australia’s PayID service, improving New Payments Platform service levels and helping with the migration of account-to-account payments from the direct entry system to the NPP.
Speaking at the Real Time Payments Summit in Sydney yesterday, Kraus said there was a clear rationale for the merger, which she believes will deliver industry benefits.
These include more integrated payment service delivery to the industry, smarter deployment of capability, such as co-ordination of BPay and NPP activities, and efficiencies from shared services.
Kraus said she has set up a commercial arm to provide consistent stakeholder engagement, across the three businesses, and a digital team to bring together the technical skills in the organisation.
“We are looking to work with the fintech community to make payments seamless for users of all sizes,” she said.