The Australian Payments Clearing Association's real-time payments program is moving into the next phase of its development. APCA will announce the appointment of a program manager within the next few days.A new steering committee is to hold its first meeting today and will start defining the program. The steering committee will have representatives from the big banks, plus Bendigo and Adelaide Bank, Citigroup, Cuscal and the Reserve Bank.APCA's chief executive, Chris Hamilton, told delegates at an AB+F retail banking conference in Sydney yesterday that other financial institutions would be invited to join the steering committee.Hamilton said the committee's task was to write a business plan for the project within six months and then start a selection process to choose technical partners.He said the aim was to build the system in 2014.The real-time payment program is the result of recommendations made by the Payments System Board of the Reserve Bank last year, calling for co-operative action to provide innovation in customer-facing payment systems.Hamilton said the new infrastructure would provide fast, data-enriched payment services. It would have a central clearing utility and would create an environment for real-time settlement.He said the goal was to have value transferred from the exchange settlement account of one authorised deposit-taking institution to the exchange settlement account of another at the same time as the transaction concerned was being processed.All ADIs will be invited to connect to the system.Hamilton said: "We are designing it to improve the data flow that accompanies payments. We will define basic payment information and provide the flexibility for financial institutions to add information to that."The system will also have overlay services that can be tailored to particular payment requirements, such as payments to a mobile phone.