Abstract
While digital payments have transformed e-commerce, they are not without drawbacks. The most noticeable issues arise from extended payment settlement times and the costs incurred from card fees, largely due to reliance on credit card payment networks. To address these shortfalls, real-time payments have been introduced by various central banks. Although real-time payment systems have been available for some time and present numerous advantages, their adoption in Australia is still limited. This paper provides an in-depth overview of Australia’s real-time payment network architecture, the New Payment Platform (NPP), including details of its service products and presents several use cases. While the aim is to inspire further innovations in the payment system utilising the NPP platform, the paper also examines the reasons for the limited adoption of real-time payments despite their clear advantages over traditional digital payment methods.
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Notes
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A bank or financial institution that processes credit or debit card payments on behalf of a merchant.
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An organisation that facilitates payment card transactions.
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Bank that provides cards to consumers.
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Acknowledgement
I would like to extend my heartfelt appreciation to Naveen Saxena (https://www.linkedin.com/in/naveen-saxena-21756854/), Kevin Naing (https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-naing-a0a02798/), and Zahid Farhan (https://www.linkedin.com/in/zahid-f-0a4aa323/) for their invaluable discussions concerning real-time payments in Australia. Their insights have immensely enriched this work. Further, my gratitude goes to Nathan Churchward (https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathanchurchward/) for providing constructive feedback on this paper, which greatly enhanced its quality.
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Pillai, B. (2024). Understanding Real-Time Payment Dynamics in Australia. In: Dong, N., Pillai, B., Bai, G., Utting, M. (eds) Distributed Ledger Technology. SDLT 2023. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1975. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-97-0006-6_9
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