In a Q&A session that followed his formal presentation to a crowd of finance industry professionals yesterday, Tony Richards, head of payments policy at the RBA, was asked about the place of digital currencies in the world of the New Payments Platform.Richards noted that, in its simplest format, the NPP would allow real-time payments to be sent by a customer or a business from their own bank account to another person's bank account. "Using a digital currency, even a digital version of an existing currency, would not qualify as using an account from a financial institution," he suggested.He added: "It remains to be seen whether there is demand for real-time payments via a digital currency, rather than real-time payments from bank account to bank accounts. I think most Australians are happy to keep the majority of their funds in their account at their bank or credit union." Richards also reminded the delegates of draft standards proposing a reduction in the benchmark for debit card from an average of 12 cents per transaction to an average of eight cents per transaction."That is in line with the reduction in the average value of scheme debit transactions since the time that the interchange benchmarks were first introduced. The average value of Visa and MasterCard transactions in 2006 was around $80. It is now down to around $55 so the bank is proposing a reduction," he said. "That should flow through to lower costs for merchants.""The [RBA] has never accepted the proposition that significant interchange payments are needed in mature card systems. So we don't think there will be any significant impact on the industry from these changes."Richards also reminded the audience that the proposed interchange standards would apply to all transactions in Australia, catching both domestically issued cards and foreign issued cards."The proposal to include transactions on foreign issued cards within the interchange regulation has had some opposition from payment schemes in particular and from financial institutions," he said."The proposal at the moment though, is to treat all card transactions in Australia equally."