The Payments System Board hopes to steer the banking industry towards a consensus on a new investment program that will deliver real-time payments, improved remittance data, a new numbering system and a new hub. And it wants most of this work done by the end of 2016.The payments' regulator also wants the industry to reform its governance by broadening the membership and scope of the Australian Payments Clearing Association and giving this new body a say on "coordination".The PSB released a "conclusions" document from its review of innovation in the payments system yesterday, following 15 months of consultation on issues and options.The board said it had resolved that it will "from time to time set out strategic objectives for the payments system."This step is in keeping, at least in principle, with some recommendations made to the inquiry by the banks and APCA.Turning these objectives into an agreed program of work and paying for them will now be the subject of much industry debate.Chris Hamilton, chief executive of APCA, said: "We welcome this consultative approach to this engagement… and setting out public policy goals."The 2016 goals look like very big ticket goals."Hamilton pointed out that APCA had already proposed reform to its governance (through the PSB wants this reform to go even further).The PSB spelled out half a dozen "initial strategic objectives." These are:-- same-day settlement of direct entry payments (by the end of 2013)-- the ability to make real-time retail payments (by the end of 2016)-- low-value payments outside normal banking hours (by the end of 2016)-- catering to "more complete" remittance information with payments (by the end of 2016)-- a new method of addressing payments that bypasses the BSB and account number (by the end of 2017).The PSB said that "a key objective is the establishment of a system that... [will] provide real-time retail payments, with real-time funds availability, by the end of 2016."The regulator concluded that "a real-time retail payment system would best be delivered by the establishment of a real-time payments hub, rather than a web of bilateral links", a position predicated on the barriers to entry created by the existing networks that reflect arrangements negotiated between banks and card schemes in the 1980s, as debit cards and then branded international credit card became common products.The PSB said it was "prepared to consider helping to facilitate these payments" through the RITS system that, in conjunction with SWIFT, provides real-time settlement for high-value transactions.There will be plenty of wrangling over who will pay for such a hub, assuming the industry agrees with the Reserve Bank that it needs to develop one.APCA's Chris Hamilton said of the recommendation: "Hubs can be very good things. It depends on the problem being solved. They [the PSB] appear to be suggesting a new piece of infrastructure and not a new service."The industry has renovated aspects of the payments system over recent years, such as a new, Telstra-managed, communications network to carry low value payments.A much more expensive project, known as Mambo (which