The new payments platform is undergoing final testing this week, said its CEO Adrian Lovney. Speaking at a conference run by funds processing firm Calastone in Sydney yesterday, Lovney told an audience of funds management professionals that an NPP board meeting was scheduled in two weeks to confirm if the system would go live next month.If it does, it will see the first real life transactions being run by employees of the 13 participants - or "identified institutions". These comprise the four major banks, the Reserve Bank of Australia, Cuscal, Indue, ING Australia, Bendigo and Adelaide Bank, ASL, Citibank, Macquarie Bank and HSBC. If all goes well, the NPP will then be launched live to the public just after Australia Day next year, and Lovney expects that, by that time, a range of other applications for the payment rails will have been developed. In theory, the system will allow limitless funds to move in real-time, with central bank settlement - therefore eliminating settlement risk and counterparty risk for the NPP's users.  What sets it apart from the other 22 or so national real time payments systems already up and running is that the NPP will allow 280 characters to each payment, allowing much more to be done with the service.  Lovney said there is opportunity for a much richer series of services to be developed - for instance buying a second hand car on a weekend, though he was coy about naming any specific services other than the one being provided by BPAY, called Osko. He reminded the audience that the infrastructure is open access and there are a series of rules in place outlining how the system will be run on the NPP website. These cover areas such as ensuring payments reached their correct destination.