The rationale for selecting SWIFT as the head contractor for the build of the New Payments Platform in Australia received an airing at the Sibos conference in Singapore.While SWIFT was the host of a panel discussion and a key executive from the company asked the questions, the industry representatives managed to shed some light on aspects of a program which still grates with the unsuccessful bidders in last year's tender.Susan Bray, general counsel at the Australian Payments Clearing Association, said: "I think the industry's done really well. I think that layered approach was really important to the will to build the system."SWIFT and the industry, working through the Australian Payments Clearing Association, finished the design and elaborate stage for the basic infrastructure of the project in the middle of the year, with the build and test phase well underway."The design we pitched during the tender process is pretty much where we ended up," Bill Doran, head of Oceania for SWIFT, said on the sidelines."At this stage it's all green lights and looking good" for the platform to be in production in later 2017, Doran said.Some details of the initial overlay service on the NPP will be made public within a couple of weeks. This seems sure to be a form of person to person payments application with some nifty features, though no one in the know was talking details to the media at Sibos this week."The sentiment displayed by SWIFT was really flexible, really ready," APCA's Bray said.SWIFT "wanted to be a partner to the industry" and conveyed an "attitude" that appealed to the dozen or so decision makers footing the bill, Bray said.The cost of the various bids may not have been a key factor in the Australian industry's choice of SWIFT, but Doran emphasised one financial feature yesterday.Doran summed it up as "cost recovery plus a margin. We are a financial cooperative …with a different mentality when it came to pricing."The legacy of the industry's mishaps with the Mambo project several years ago appears to live on, not in the knowhow for the NPP, but through an appreciation on how to coordinate investment.Asked if any bank was dragging the chain, Doran said "No, it's been an extremely good process."David Brown, NPP program director at the Reserve Bank of Australia, said "where there are issues, where there are disagreements, people move on. I'm really surprised with the level of collaboration in the industry."