Submission to the Government's Financial System Inquiry

"The Australian payments system is one of the most developed and dynamic in the world."

MEDIA RELEASE

3 April 2014

APCA continues to support co-regulatory approach

The Australian Payments Clearing Association, the payments industry self-regulatory body, has lodged an industry response to the Commonwealth Government’s Financial System Inquiry (FSI) supporting a continued co-regulatory approach to payments system enhancements.

The 17 years since the release of the Wallis Report in March 1997 have seen significant changes within Australian payments. In March 1997, payment offerings such as BPAY and PayPal did not exist and payment channels and instruments such as mobile, online and contactless were unknown – today these offerings, channels and instruments are used by millions of Australians every day. Conversely, Australians today use 75 per cent fewer cheques than they did in 1997.

APCA CEO Chris Hamilton said, “The Australian payments system is one of the most developed and dynamic in the world. Business and consumers have access to a broad yet increasing range of electronic payment methods and continue to embrace them enthusiastically.”

Amidst this changing landscape, the payments industry and the Reserve Bank of Australia as payments regulator have been able to adapt and foster improvement through a co-regulatory approach. Mr Hamilton said that the industry continues to support this approach.

“We have said to the FSI that the current regulatory structure encourages industry engagement with the regulator. We believe this has worked well and there is no need for any radical overhaul,” said Mr Hamilton.

Mr Hamilton identified the ongoing New Payments Platform (NPP) initiative and the proposed new Australian Payments Council as recent examples.

“The NPP is new payments infrastructure currently being developed collaboratively by industry in association with the RBA. It will provide businesses and consumers with a fast, versatile, data- rich payments system for making their everyday payments. This highlights the long-term benefit that a co-regulatory approach can produce.”

“With the rapid development of new payment technologies, there will be emerging challenges that need to be addressed. The new Payments Council, which will include the RBA and industry stakeholders, will provide a venue for the industry as a whole to debate and respond to these challenges.”

“We believe the co-regulatory approach taken thus far has proven to be a sound and sustainable way of resolving issues in a technologically-complex network industry,” said Mr Hamilton.

APCA’s submission to the FSI is available at www.apca.com.au

ENDS

Media:

Ida Turner, APCA Communications
Tel. (02) 9216 4817 Mobile: 0409 716 556

Australian Payments Clearing Association Limited ABN 12 055 136 519
Level 6, 14 Martin Place, Sydney NSW 2000 Telephone +61 2 9216 4888 Facsimile +61 2 9221 8057 www.apca.com.au