Warwick Ponder

Warwick has been involved in public debate about Australian payments regulation and innovation for almost 15 years, strongly advocating for the rights of consumers and small businesses. He has more than 30 years of experience in publishing, advocacy and business communications across fields including government, payments, telecommunications, energy and natural resources.

Feedback on costly NPP bulk payments solution due today

As the industry struggles to satisfy the Reserve Bank that the New Payments Platform can deal with the Government’s high priority bulk payments for essential services including welfare, veterans, pensions and the public service payroll, Australian Payments Plus is looking for feedback on a potential fix – but it comes with a big price tag and ongoing costs.

A2A

Game on. PSPs and acquirers fight to survive in a post-surcharge world

Ahead of what is likely to be the biggest Payment Service Provider (PSP) and acquiring market shakeup in decades, Tyro, Zeller, Westpac and CBA are already wooing customers for the post-surcharging world, while ANZ remains mum on its plans for ANZ Worldline.

Fintech

Fintechs grapple with stark no-surcharge future

Following the Reserve Bank’s no surcharge decision, a gaggle of well-known fintechs including Zeller, Shift4, Zero, PayNuts, Square and Tyro may need to rebuild their business models and, in some cases, technology stacks, or risk losing massive market share back to the big banks.

Fintech

Inflation fuel: RBA gifts banks and US card schemes a big win on cards fees and surcharges

Yesterday’s glossy, spin-doctored RBA announcement felt more like a corporate launch than a regulatory decision, complete with case studies, vox pops and puffed up stats to back in the central bank’s long-awaited decision. But while the banks, the ACCC and US card schemes were celebrating their lobbying efforts on interchange relief and surcharging bans, small businesses were considering how much they will need to lift prices to deal with the thousands of dollars in extra fees they will need to pay come October.

Regulation

Invest and coordinate: more work ahead to build real time resilience

Commonwealth Bank, Westpac, ANZ and NAB are among the industry players who who could make better use of “underutilised critical infrastructure” to finally unlock the power of resilience, trust and real time payments in Australia.

A2A

Unplugged Binance fined $10m for exposure

Binance Australia is having a bad year. After being unplugged after a short stint riding the Australian financial system via Bolt Group and Banking Circle, the company has now been fined $10 million for exposing its customers to high risk crypto products without protection and is still under an AUSTRAC investigation.

Regulation

US giants Mastercard and Visa eye Aussie A2A options

Fresh from its acquisition of stablecoin infrastructure player BVNK, Mastercard now has its eye on Australia’s account-to-account market as it continues to expand its global tentacles into new forms of payments. And, as usual, Visa is joining the party.

A2A

BECS lifeline?

In an effort to take the pressure off ongoing criticism from the Reserve Bank, industry is about to release its assessment of the options to upgrade the old Bulk Electronic Clearing System (BECS).

Regulation

Express Transit mobile confusion as Victorian myki tap trial kicks in

Easy access mobile payments for transit may be responsible for Victorian commuters accidently paying for fares twice.

Government

Merger abandoned amid A2A uncertainty

Plans for a merger of Monoova and Zai have been abandoned for now, but the need for consolidation in the uncertain account-to-account (A2A) paytech sector continues.

Fintech

PayTo needs a facelift to compete with BECS: RBA

PayTo - Australia’s real time answer to direct debit - needs an urgent facelift if the industry hopes to convince consumers to move to real time payments en masse.

Regulation

Consultation looks at PSPs, ePayments Code powers and unclaimed funds

Treasury has launched a consultation on new legislation for payments service providers (PSPs), including power to make rules for a mandatory and revised ePayments Code and new controls for unclaimed monies.

Fintech

Rare debit surcharge slap for Hyatt just days away from RBA decision

More than 18 months after receiving $2.1 million in funding for surcharging surveillance, the competition regulator has finally taken action.

Regulation

US Ripple buys remnants of BC Payments for Aussie licence

US crypto outfit Ripple is buying the remnants of Banking Circle’s original Australian entity, BC Payments Australia, to obtain an Australian Financial Services License (AFSL) quickly.

Banks

Cards close to the chest – RBA mum on fees and surcharge decision

The decision has already been made but the Reserve Bank isn’t giving away any clues as it prepares for the official release of its final verdict on merchant fees and surcharging later this month.

Merchant Service Fees

Is banking politics at play in lingering cash saga?

Despite the promise of special interest deals and approved closed-shop negotiations, Australia’s high drama cash distribution saga has dragged on for almost three years.

Cash

Is Matos’ next move to ramp up or sell off ANZ Worldline and the Suncorp merchant business?

Well-versed in the art of acquiring, ANZ’s Nuno Matos now faces a payment headache – what to do with Suncorp’s 3,000 merchant customers, and his troublesome joint venture partner Worldline.

Banks

RBA threatens to intervene over A2A discord

The Reserve Bank will intervene to achieve “public interest” outcomes on real time payments if the industry fails to find consensus on key issues like bulk processing and resilience.

Regulation

Payments legend Dhun Karai is finally slowing her pace ... sort of

Dhun Karai - one of the most influential women in Australian payments – is slightly easing her lightning pace for the first time in three decades, citing aggressive promotion of eftpos and mentoring young women in payments as some of her biggest achievements to date.

The Payments Spotlight

Bank lobby flags capped credit card surcharge option

With the Reserve Bank set to make its final decision on merchant fees and surcharging tomorrow, the big bank lobby has flagged an alternative to banning credit card surcharging which involves the introduction of credit surcharge caps.

Merchant Service Fees

Big banks fight to compete online, as rumours rage on Stripe PayPal buyout

Aussie banks are struggling to compete with easy to use and fee-heavy plugins and apps in Australia’s fastest growing payment category - online - as talk of a Stripe takeover of PayPal and Block shedding jobs floods the market.

Digital & Online

Cross-border payments still too expensive and slow: RBA

Australia’s goals to speed up and reduce the cost of cross-border payments are behind schedule, with banks usually proving more expensive than some fintechs to send money overseas.

Digital & Online

Osko and SCT join in A2A harmony

Australian Payments Plus (AP+) is harmonising its New Payments Platform (NPP) push payments offering by merging the Single Credit Transfer (STC) and Osko services into one.

A2A

Australia’s EMV POS infrastructure not ready for A2A - Apple and RBA

While a few hopeful fintechs are expecting government to support a massive shift to account-to-account (A2A) POS payments, Apple and the RBA said the country’s infrastructure is geared towards EMV card payments and simply isn’t ready.

Fintech

CBA buys in Dynamic Least-Cost Routing and outage resilience with IPSI

The country’s biggest bank will be able to offer customers Dynamic Least-Cost Routing (DLCR) and improved outage resilience by year end, after it snapped up local innovative fintech IPSI.

Fintech