Payments made using the Osko overlay on the New Payments Platform increased by almost double last year, as the NPP settled in as a cornerstone element of the payments infrastructure.
According to the latest Reserve Bank payments data, the number of Osko payments was 52.8 million in December 2020, an increase of 78 per cent over December 2019.
The value of those payments was A$59.1 billion in December, an increase of 73.9 per cent over December 2019.
The total value of NPP payments, including Osko payments, in December was $66.5 billion, an increase of 86 per cent over December 2019.
The growth represents greater take-up by consumers, institutions migrating from direct entry payments to the NPP and even business using Osko for payments such as wages.
By comparison, the value of purchases on debit cards in December was $39.9 billion, an increase of 17 per cent over December 2019.
In December 2019, the value of debit card payments and Osko payments was roughly the same, at around $33 billion, but since then the Osko system has taken off.
The value of purchases on personal credit and charge cards in December was $24.2 billion, which was down 3.7 per cent from the previous December.
The value of cash withdrawals by debit cards at ATMs in December was $9.8 billion, compared with withdrawals of $10.7 billion the previous December – a fall of 8.4 per cent.
The number of payments using debit and credit cards is still much higher than the number of payments going through Osko, which reflects the fact that Osko is used for relatively high values payments. The average value of an Osko payment in December was $1120.