Commonwealth Bank is rolling out new features for its widely used banking apps aimed at combating the plague of scammers ripping off Australians. From late March, the app will indicate whether the name and account details customers have entered are correct when they make payments using a BSB and account number.

“Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) Gov. Philip Lowe outlined four goals and initiatives to improve Australia’s payments system in a Wednesday speech. 1. Lowering payment costs for merchants.   A big part of this initiative involves expanding least-cost routing (LCR), which lets merchants route debit payments through the most affordable network. Merchants can choose from Visa, Mastercard, or home-grown payments network eftpos. Australia’s Payments System Board wants to make LCR available for mobile wallet payments—which has strong penetration in the market. 2. Supporting the development of Australia’s faster payments system. Australia offers account-to-account push payments through its New Payments Platform (NPP), which has processed over 1 billion transactions worth more than $1 trillion in the past year. But it wants to enable the same faster payments functionality for direct debit payments. Since NPP was designed for push payments, the government created PayTo to enable faster direct debit payments. But Lowe is frustrated with Australia’s major banks, which he says have been slow to implement PayTo. The banks have agreed to make PayTo fully operational by April 2023…”

“Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe has called on global tech giants to reduce payment costs for retailers accepting payments made through smartphones. At his keynote at today’s AusPayNet event in Sydney, Lowe said the RBA has consulted with Apple, Google, and Samsung, as well as the banks and POS providers, in order to implement “least cost routing” for merchants. LCR will route payments through the bank-owned eftpos network, rather than via Visa and Mastercard, which charge retailers more. Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay “is growing very quickly, and they are often more expensive for merchants to accept,” Lowe said. “It would be both feasible and desirable for the industry to deliver LCR functionality for mobile wallet transactions by the end of 2024.”

“The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) published a speech by Assistant Governor Brad Jones which outlines some of the worrisome impacts that a central bank digital currency (CBDC) could have on the country’s financial system. Jones focused his remarks on the potential risks of a retail CBDC. “This recognizes that a wholesale CBDC would entail less change to the status quo, as financial institutions already hold digital claims issued by the Bank.” Jones reviewed some of the key arguments in favor of CBDC adoption, including strengthening financial inclusion where banks are few or distant, supporting universal access to public money where banknotes are hard to access or sparingly used, and safeguarding monetary sovereignty in societies with weaker rule of law and monetary systems. According to Jones, these situations do not apply to Australia…“The first of these concerns relates to the potential for a CBDC to become the preferred source of liquidity holdings for households in normal times, at the expense of commercial bank deposits,” Jones said.”

“The role of a bank in ecommerce in Australia is changing, with the launch of CBA’s new platform PowerBoard. With this solution, selected merchants will be able to “plug in” to the platform once and deploy their ecommerce offering, gaining access to a range of payment methods which can be seamlessly switched on for their customers – all through a single platform. To date, payments orchestration has generally only been accessible to larger business with in-house technology teams. PowerBoard will provide merchants of many sizes with payments acquiring, multi gateway capability, a menu of payment options, and an innovation roadmap that will future-proof their business and deliver technology efficiencies. To deliver this Australian banking first, CBA has partnered with fintech and payments orchestration platform Paydock, combining global best technology with bank-grade standards to give merchants peace of mind and meet enhanced security, fraud, data and cyber standards. The PowerBoard portal provides a simple interface to switch on features, monitor real-time transactions, and configure the experience they want to deliver to their customers; meeting the unique needs of each business…PowerBoard is set to integrate with five categories of payment methods: traditional card payments; digital wallets including Apple Pay and Google Pay; Buy Now Pay Later alternative payment methods; domestic payment methods such as eftpos and PayTo; and digital gift cards. In addition to payment methods, PowerBoard will simplify other technology integrations, such as enhanced security tools that support merchants to detect and prevent fraud. Additional connected services will be added in future releases, such as logistics and multi-currency. In some cases, an agreement will be required between the merchant and the provider of the third party connected service.”

“Afterpay customers could have to undergo more detailed credit checks under new regulations being considered for the buy now, pay later (BNPL) sector. Treasury is putting the finishing touches on its review of how BNPL operators such as Afterpay, Zip, humm and Klarna can be regulated to help provide better protections for consumers. The resulting issues paper is due to be released in coming weeks. A relatively new industry, BNPL is exempt from laws designed to protect borrowers who use products such as credit cards and personal loans. The loophole exists because providers don’t charge customers interest, and therefore the product they provide is not technically considered credit. Flagging the Treasury review earlier this year, Financial Services Minister Stephen Jones said he wanted BNPL services to be treated like other credit products under Australian law.”

“The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has set out to explore use cases for a digital version of the Australian dollar. It’s collaborating on the project with the Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre (DFCRC), a research program funded by the government and the financial sector. This week, the two released a white paper for the central bank digital currency (CBDC). The document titled “Australian CBDC Pilot for Digital Finance Innovation” details the main objectives of the initiative and explains the design of the new currency. Members of the industry have been invited to propose use cases that have the potential to improve the functioning of Australia’s economy and financial system, the RBA announced.”

“Merchants in Australia can now accept contactless payments directly on their Android NFC smartphone or tablet using National Australia Bank’s Easy Tap software point of sale (sPOS) solution. The Easy Tap app is “a simple low-cost solution which lets you take payments anywhere, any time, with no need for a separate terminal” and provides merchants with “transaction data in real time so you can spot sales trends and get the information you need to help you manage and grow your business”, National Australia Bank says. “This is perfect for Australians for a side hustle — think your local farmers market, coffee carts and mobile hairdressers who don’t want to lug around a payment terminal or dongle and who are looking for instant insight into how their business is performing,” NAB’s Andrew Irvine says. Westpac bank began piloting its Tap on Phone sPOS solution with merchants in Australia in June.”