Ellis Connolly, head of payments policy, RBA
It’s the thorniest question in payments in Australia. The case for extending the life of the Bulk Electronic Clearing System versus a wholesale embrace of the New Payments Platform for account to account payments.
A webinar yesterday hosted by NPP operator Australian Payments Plus heard from Ellis Connolly, Head of Payments Policy at the Reserve Bank that the planned June 2030 termination date for BECS is “not the primary concern, the target date is not so important.
“End users need to feel like they have been involved.
“The good news is that AP+ and AusPayNet are making progress on these recommendations” in the RBA’s recently, and highly adverse, risk assessment on the BECS transition, Connolly said.
“A lot [of end users] are asking; why is BECS being decommissioned?
“It’s a reliable workhorse. A lot of stakeholders were not convinced the industry evaluated the costs and benefits in migrating BECS.
“The industry should assess whether BECS should be retained.
“There’s a cost for end users in investing in new account to account solutions. For
end users, there needs to be a really strong case - whether BECS should be retained” Ellis said.
Katrina Stuart from AP+ said the NPP was developing a “bulk file … a multi-credit transfer service.
“We’re open to alternatives to decommissioning BECS” she said.
On Friday, the ACCC provided interim authorisation for AusPayNet and Australian Payments Plus and current and future members of BECS and the NPP “to establish processes, gather the requisite information [and] commence planning” for the decommissioning of BECS.