At a time when the latest technology and connectivity has made instant gratification a part of our lifestyles, now banking is about to join that list with the introduction of instant bank transfers.
Three of the big four banks – Commonwealth Bank, Westpac and National Australia Bank are introducing the New Payments Platform (NPP) which will allow customers to transfer money that will be available in the receiver’s account in under a minute.
Until today, these transfers could have taken up to three days – despite it being a digital transfer.
The NPP is a new payments infrastructure built by the Australian financial services industry with the support of the Reserve Bank, which makes these near instant payments possible.
And transferring money using the NPP does not require a BSB number or even an account number.
Instead they will use a PayID which makes it possible for a customer to use an email address or phone number to link their account.
The three participating banks will make the new service available to their customers from this week.
The only holdout so far is the ANZ Bank which is still testing the system before making it official and rolling it out to its customers.
“As the first major bank to offer real time banking to customers in 2010, we welcome payment solutions that make it faster and easier to send and receive money between Australians,” says Commonwealth Bank executive general manager, digital, Pete Steel.
“With more than $6 billion of transactions across the CommBank app each week, we are pleased to be one of the first Australian banks to offer our customers a way to receive and make payments instantly from other financial institutions.
“We are committed to delivering a safe, high quality option to our customers. We have offered instant payments between our customers for some years now and we look forward to seeing the take up across the industry now that the Platform has launched.”
Customers can set up PayID their bank, building society or credit union contacts them to advise the service is ready.
Once that happens, customers can create their PayID within their bank’s mobile app.
PayID will be offered as a payment method and when you enter the person’s email address or number the name of that person will be shown automatically and you just confirm the details ate correct.
Once approved your bank will connect to their bank and the money is sent directly into their account and available to use within 60 seconds.
