The New Payments Platform "is likely to start off small", Philip Lowe, governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, said on Friday.In a nod to the report in Banking Day two weeks ago that key bank brands will be absent from the planned mid-November start up for the new, real time payments system, Lowe provided confirmation of at least the theme of our article, though the central bank chief named none of the laggards among the 13 "participants" in the NPP. "The new system is expected to commence processing payments later this year. It is likely to start off small and gradually ramp up next year as financial institutions gain experience with a new way of operating 24/7," Lowe told a hearing of the economics committee of the House of Representatives.There is much debate, at least among contacts of Banking Day, over which one - or more - iconic banking names will fail to be ready to offer NPP services when the new platform debuts in three months' time.Banking Day reported on August 2 that Westpac was probably the "big bank in the outer," among NPP banks.  But Commonwealth Bank is named, confidently, by a range of long term sources as the major bank running foul of NPP deadlines -  a claim CBA rejects.On the other hand, there are payments industry veterans (that we cannot name) backing up our original report that Westpac is struggling, or looking for some form of soft launch to make a show of keeping up with other banks.Lisa Lintern, communications strategist for NPP Australia, in an email on Friday wrote that "we're on track for a ramp-up of the central infrastructure commencing from November 2017. "From that point, the participating financial institutions will commence rolling out their own offerings in line with their own timelines. This means consumers will access the Platform's capabilities (initially through products and services like Osko and PayID) via different channels and timings. "Those plans and timings are entirely at the discretion of the participants."