ANZ Bank has been invited to come in from the cold by its three major rivals driving the Beem real time payments service.Banking Day has learned that Beem's foundation partners - CBA, Westpac and NAB - will try to persuade ANZ's payments executives to join the instant payments service at a special meeting in Sydney next week.The talks were organised following approaches earlier this year to the Melbourne-based bank by Westpac senior payments executive Stephen Benton and CBA's head of everyday banking and payments, Michael Baumann.Benton and Baumann have begun to step up spruiking the commercial merits of Beem to other financial institutions and are expected to be involved in presenting a business case to ANZ payments executives.An ANZ spokesperson declined to answer questions from Banking Day about the bank's strategic intentions in relation to Beem.However, sources told Banking Day that ANZ remained sceptical about the business case for Beem although the bank would enter the Sydney meeting with an "open mind".The discussions with the Beem partners might be occurring at a strategic moment for ANZ's retail payments operation.ANZ is still the only Australian major bank to make another mobile wallet service - Apple Pay - available to its customers.While the bank insists that its partnership with Apple Pay is paying off as a customer acquisition tool, there is increasing scepticism among international payments experts about the level of customer support for the Cupertino-developed product.It is not yet clear whether other banks would also be willing to get involved in Beem after Suncorp and at least one other deposit taker expressed reservations about the joint venture when approached by the three foundation banks last year.A pilot of the Beem service is currently being conducted by CBA for customers who sign up through the www.beem.com.au website.Beem allows debit account holders to transfer funds in real time via digital wallets on their mobile phones.Payments can only be made and received between account holders who download and register to use the Beem mobile app.The service will be available to holders of dual network debit cards that enable transactions to be processed either through the eftpos, Visa or Mastercard systems.CBA is presently marketing Beem as a free service to personal customers, which raises questions about the viability of the business when users are eventually required to pay fees.There is an expectation that Beem's service offering will eventually be expanded to include a loyalty program.The service could also be developed to facilitate payments between customers and merchants.Benton - a vocal supporter of the Beem business model - is due to vacate his role as Westpac's head of consumer finance and payments when he assumes the executive reins of eftpos Australia in May.In his new role Benton could exercise strategic influence over the development of Beem given that its ability to complete transactions across Australia depends mostly on the digital rails provided to it by the eftpos network.