Innovation review by PSB

The Payments System Board on Friday announced that it plans to "undertake a strategic review of innovation in the Australian payments system." The PSB said it anticipates releasing a consultation document within 12 months and finalising its conclusions by the end of 2011.

In the release announcing the review, the PSB said it will carry out "a stock take of the Australian payments system and innovation overseas." One task will be to conduct a survey on the use of payment instruments by consumers in Australia, similar to one conducted in 2007 by Roy Morgan Research. It did not mention surveying business payments.

The release said the "purpose of this project is to identify areas in which innovation in the Australian payments system may be improved through more effective co-operation among stakeholders and regulators.

"It will take a medium-term perspective, looking at trends and developments overseas in payment systems and potential gaps in innovation in the Australian payments system."

Patrolling the level and design of interchange fees in payments systems, as well as access to payment systems, have been the primary policy interests of the Payments System Board since the formation of the regulator in the late 1990s as a subsidiary board of the Reserve Bank of Australia.

Innovation has rarely featured in PSB commentary on payments, though it did creep in as a subsidiary topic at a conference convened by the PSB in late 2007.