The Australian Payments Clearing Association has appointed Paul Lahiff as chair of the New Payments Platform's steering committee. The NPP will be the new infrastructure for low-value electronic payments, incorporating real-time settlement. Lahiff is an industry veteran who has served as chief executive of Mortgage Choice and the Permanent Trustee Company. He is currently chair of Smartline Personal Mortgage Advisers, of research company RFi and of the standards body LIKI. Commonwealth Bank shareholders will be asked to vote on a grant of shares worth A$4.3 million to the bank's chief executive, Ian Narev. The notice of meeting for the bank's November 8 Annual General Meeting spells out the terms of the grant of "reward rights" under a group leadership reward plan, including a total shareholder return target and a customer satisfaction performance hurdle. Narev earned a total salary of $7.8 million last year.