NPP Australia has set December as the deadline for participating financial institutions to start receiving NPP messages with additional defined data elements for these specific payment types.
Development of specific message standards, covering areas such as payroll and tax, is one of the number of projects NPPA is working on to expand the capability of the New Payments Platform.
It has issued an update of its development plans, first outlined in October last year, setting out a timeline for the introduction of new services.
NPPA has six areas of focus: development of new message standards; development of a mandated payment service to support recurring payments; implementation of a payment initiation service; support for the domestic leg of inbound cross-border payments; support for the use of QR codes; and extension of the NPP API framework.
The new message standards and mandatory payment service require implementation by all 90 participating financial institutions.
The new message standards cover payroll, tax, superannuation and e-invoicing, and are designed to ensure a consistent approach to the treatment of data for different payment types. The new standards are designed to support the growth of business use and commercial payments on the NPP.
NPP participating financial institutions are obliged to start receiving NPP messages by December.
The mandated payment service will allow customers to authorise third parties to initiate payments from their bank accounts using the NPP. It will provide an alternative to current direct debit arrangements and in-app payments on behalf of services conducted by third parties.
Customers will be able to view, modify and manage their authorisations digitally and more easily move mandated payments from one bank to another. A design feature of the NPP development that is different from overseas schemes is that customers will only require one access point for authorising and changing mandates.
All NPP participants are required to implement elements of this capability by the end of 2021, with the service to be made available in early 2022.