PayID jitters as NPP dawns

Ian Rogers
Macquarie Bank will be a noteworthy no show on the New Payments Platform when the long awaited industry reform opens up to the public by the middle of this week.

On Friday, and over the weekend, a selection of banks began to promote pre-registration in PayID, a prop of the customer experience with the new real time payments system.

"An announcement will be made in coming days about the launch of the New Payments Platform," NPP Australia said in a media release on Friday.

Tuesday is the day slated for the principal public relations push on the NPP, with enrolment in PayID open for real across the industry by then, with transactions due to processed in near real time for all registered customers by some point on Wednesday. Television and other media advertising debuted on Friday, the initial commercial pushing PayID only (rather than the related Osko branding).

While every single bank brand was never assured to be involved in the NPP and the Osko branded "convenience service" from the outset, there is one gaping omission from the first wave of the sixty odd banks involved in this week's launch.

Macquarie Bank - one of the 13 original "participants" that funded the build of the NPP over recent years - is an omission at the NPPA website under "Find My Institution". A search of Macquarie's own website yields no results relating to NPP, PayID or Osko. The bank's media relations advisers declined to comment yesterday.

Bankwest is a last minute addition to the NPPA website of banking brands involved, suggesting a change of approach by Commonwealth Bank to include customers under that brand in the first wave of banks involved in real time payments. Three subsidiary Westpac brands - St George, BankSA and Bank of Melbourne - remain missing from this list. Also taking a wait and see approach for now are Bank of Queensland, Suncorp, ME, Rabobank and Auswide Bank.

Most mutual banks and numerous credit unions are part of the first wave.