The Department of Finance has implemented a cash management program using the New Payments Platform, in a project designed to speed up payments by government agencies.
Project NeRF allows agencies to have funds paid immediately on any day of the week.
Deputy head of the banking department at the Reserve Bank, which worked on the project, said in a statement: “Historically, if a government agency required funding in order to make payments, it would need to request a drawdown of funds by 2 pm on the business day before payments were due, to ensure the money was in place in its bank account on the payment data.
“An urgent same day request was only available once per day via RTGS.”