Westpac supplied a cautious outline yesterday of its restrained progress rolling out the New Payments Platform. One slide suggests "Roll out to the main Westpac brand" will be complete by the end of 2018.
"Extend to all regional brands" is spread over 2019, not soon enough for customers of BankSA, Bank of Melbourne and St George made to wait since February for access.
NPP capability under the main brand "has now been extended to Tasmania, South Australia and Northern Territory," the bank said, with more than 1.3 million payments, with a total value in excess of $1 billion processed on the system so far. This is about a third of the value handled by ANZ, another late arrival in NPP land.
The bank is more enthusiastic about other consumer payment innovations, listing partnerships with Google Pay, Garmin, Fit Bit, and Beem It, and its "strategic investments in companies including Assembly Payments, Zip, Uno, and Open Agent, as well as Reinventure's growing portfolio of Fintech startups."