The modern retail payments methods Australia is setting out to foster won't be all that new, but will rather align the most basic payments processes with a specialised banking network that's been at the cornerstone of international payments for decades, if Swift and Fiserv prove to be the successful bidders to build the New Payments Platform. How long has Swift been making retail payments fly in Switzerland? Eons, if the early 1990s can be seen as long ago.Swift's problem is its reputation for being pricey, so it will be interesting to see the final commercial arrangements. A Swift solution was on the cards as an option for Australia long ago, but never pursued. The institutional arrangements for the NPP, informed by technological constraints, also may not be that different from what could have been had 20 years ago. The blockages to reform run deep in banking. This ethic also informs the final co-operation by banks on the NPP project. They will, as is common, refashion their businesses and reshape their costs in unison.