Industry | Banking, Regulation |
---|---|
Founded | 18 February 1992 |
Headquarters | , Australia |
Key people | Andy White, CEO John Brogan, Chair |
Website | www |
Australian Payments Network Limited (AusPayNet), formerly the Australian Payments Clearing Association (APCA) [1] is the self-regulatory body set up by the payments industry to improve the safety, reliability, equity, convenience and efficiency of payment systems in Australia.
AusPayNet has over 140 members [2] which include Australia's leading financial institutions, such as banks, building societies and credit unions, as well as major retailers and other service providers. [3]
AusPayNet administers a number of payment systems in Australia. AusPayNet sets, manages and develops regulations, procedures and standards governing payments clearing and settlement within Australia. Payments systems covered by AusPayNet's rules include cheques, direct debits and credits, aspects of ATM and EFTPOS transactions, high value payments and the distribution of wholesale cash. Its role includes strategic direction and regulatory policy for the Australian payments system.
AusPayNet provides a venue for collaboration and cross-industry innovation on these issues and works closely with government, regulators, payments stakeholders and individuals to improve the payments system.
AusPayNet is also the official issuer and custodian of Bank State Branch (BSB) numbers, the bank code system used in Australia. AusPayNet assigns the bank code to a financial institution who then allocates the other digits, in line with guidelines set by AusPayNet. AusPayNet also manages the Magnetic ink character recognition (MICR) cheque encoding standards in Australia. [4]
The objective of AusPayNet is to improve the Australian payments system [5] through:
AusPayNet's roles include providing:
The Australian Paper Clearing System (APCS) is the system that facilitates the exchange and settlement of cheques and other paper-based payments in Australia, under the governance of the APN. [6]
AusPayNet was called APCA when established on 18 February 1992 as a self-regulatory industry body charged with carrying forward the process of payments reform. In its early years, it focused on re-grouping payment services into distinct clearing systems and developing and managing rules and procedures for their day-to-day operation. In its next phase, the company took responsibility for managing projects and for contingency planning, certification and accreditation. These kinds of activities remain core business for AusPayNet.
It took over the regulation and management of the BSB system, which had been in operation since the 1970s. In 2017, the company celebrated its 25th anniversary as the payments industry's self-regulatory body and changed its name to Australian Payments Network (AusPayNet). [7]
On 1 January 2014, it adopted a new Constitution designed to recognise the growing diversity of interests in payments arising from structural and technological change and to provide a more inclusive and representative association of the Australian payments system. The new Constitution opened AusPayNet membership to participants and operators of non-AusPayNet payment systems.
AusPayNet has been publishing cheque and card fraud statistics since November 2006 as part of the payment industry's commitment to counter payments fraud and to help the public in understanding payments fraud issues. The payment fraud figures for 2016 show that Australian card fraud is increasing as part of a global trend, but that detection and prevention measures employed by the industry are showing promising results in keeping fraud levels down.
Transaction fraud declined by 15% in 2019, the first decline in eight years, whilst "strong growth" was noted in card use over the same year. [8] In December 2021, AusPayNet released data showing a 9.2% rise of fraud in payment card transactions during increased online spending, concurrent with COVID-19 lockdowns, for the 12 months ending 30 June 2021. [9]
In 2011, the company began a public consultation period to gain feedback on the future role of cheques in Australia. [10]
In May 2012 the company released the final report from its consultation entitled "The Decline of Cheques: Building a Bridge to the Digital Economy". The report summarises the outcomes of the consultation process and includes a series of Recommendation and Commitments to ensure those that still rely on cheques today can switch to electronic payments as cheques become scarcer and more difficult to use. AusPayNet regularly releases Milestones Reports, to track progress against the Recommendations and Commitments. One recent report, released in August 2014, featured a special focus on cash use. [11] The latest Report, was released in May 2017. [12]
In July 2013, the company announced a new industry-wide program to develop a New Payments Platform (NPP) for Australia and established NPP Australia Limited in December 2014 to oversee its development and operation.
AusPayNet is supporting Australia's first Contactless Transport Payments trial launched by Transport NSW on 6 July 2017.
Electronic Funds Transfer at Point Of Sale, abbreviated as EFTPOS; is the technical term referring to a type of payment transaction where electronic funds transfers (EFT) are processed at a point of sale (POS) system or payment terminal usually via payment methods such as payment cards. EFTPOS technology was developed during the 1980s.
Cheque clearing or bank clearance is the process of moving cash from the bank on which a cheque is drawn to the bank in which it was deposited, usually accompanied by the movement of the cheque to the paying bank, either in the traditional physical paper form or digitally under a cheque truncation system. This process is called the clearing cycle and normally results in a credit to the account at the bank of deposit, and an equivalent debit to the account at the bank on which it was drawn, with a corresponding adjustment of accounts of the banks themselves. If there are not enough funds in the account when the cheque arrived at the issuing bank, the cheque would be returned as a dishonoured cheque marked as non-sufficient funds.
Bank fraud is the use of potentially illegal means to obtain money, assets, or other property owned or held by a financial institution, or to obtain money from depositors by fraudulently posing as a bank or other financial institution. In many instances, bank fraud is a criminal offence.
The Australian financial system consists of the arrangements covering the borrowing and lending of funds and the transfer of ownership of financial claims in Australia, comprising:
A cheque is a document that orders a bank, building society to pay a specific amount of money from a person's account to the person in whose name the cheque has been issued. The person writing the cheque, known as the drawer, has a transaction banking account where the money is held. The drawer writes various details including the monetary amount, date, and a payee on the cheque, and signs it, ordering their bank, known as the drawee, to pay the amount of money stated to the payee.
In banking and finance, clearing refers to all activities from the time a commitment is made for a transaction until it is settled. This process turns the promise of payment into the actual movement of money from one account to another. Clearing houses were formed to facilitate such transactions among banks.
A Bank State Branch is the name used in Australia for a bank code, which is a branch identifier. The BSB is normally used in association with the account number system used by each financial institution. The structure of the BSB + account number does not permit for account numbers to be transferable between financial institutions. While similar in structure, the New Zealand and Australian systems are only used in domestic transactions and are incompatible with each other. For international transfers, a SWIFT code is used in addition to the BSB and account number.
A payment system is any system used to settle financial transactions through the transfer of monetary value. This includes the institutions, payment instruments such as payment cards, people, rules, procedures, standards, and technologies that make its exchange possible. A payment system is an operational network which links bank accounts and provides for monetary exchange using bank deposits. Some payment systems also include credit mechanisms, which are essentially a different aspect of payment.
A direct debit or direct withdrawal is a financial transaction in which one organisation withdraws funds from a payer's bank account. Formally, the organisation that calls for the funds instructs their bank to collect an amount directly from another's bank account designated by the payer and pay those funds into a bank account designated by the payee. Before the payer's banker will allow the transaction to take place, the payer must have advised the bank that they have authorized the payee to directly draw the funds. It is also called pre-authorized debit (PAD) or pre-authorized payment (PAP). After the authorities are set up, the direct debit transactions are usually processed electronically.
Sort codes are the domestic bank codes used to route money transfers between financial institutions in the United Kingdom, and in the Republic of Ireland. They are six-digit hierarchical numerical addresses that specify clearing banks, clearing systems, regions, large financial institutions, groups of financial institutions and ultimately resolve to individual branches. In the UK they continue to be used to route transactions domestically within clearance organizations and to identify accounts, while in the Republic of Ireland they have been deprecated and replaced by the Single European Payment Area (SEPA) systems and infrastructure.
Payment cards are part of a payment system issued by financial institutions, such as a bank, to a customer that enables its owner to access the funds in the customer's designated bank accounts, or through a credit account and make payments by electronic transfer with a payment terminal and access automated teller machines (ATMs). Such cards are known by a variety of names, including bank cards, ATM cards, client cards, key cards or cash cards.
A substitute check is a negotiable instrument that is a digital reproduction of an original paper check. As a negotiable payment instrument in the United States, a substitute check maintains the status of a "legal check" in lieu of the original paper check, as authorized by the Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act. Instead of presenting the original paper checks, financial institutions and payment-processing centers transmit data from substitute checks electronically through the settlement process, through the United States Federal Reserve System, or by clearing the deposits on the basis of private agreements between member financial institutions. Financial institutions that process substitute checks in accordance with such private agreements are typically members of a clearinghouse that operates under the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC).
The Cabcharge account payment system was established in 1976 to provide taxi passengers a way to pay for taxi fares by non-cash means. The payment system is owned and operated by A2B Australia, an Australian Securities Exchange listed public company. In the UK and Singapore, Cabcharge is operated by subsidiaries of ComfortDelGro, whom it used to co-own Australian systems of.
The Payments Council was an organisation of financial institutions in the United Kingdom, which set strategy for UK payment mechanisms from 2007 until 2015.
Credit card fraud is an inclusive term for fraud committed using a payment card, such as a credit card or debit card. The purpose may be to obtain goods or services or to make payment to another account, which is controlled by a criminal. The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard is the data security standard created to help financial institutions process card payments securely and reduce card fraud.
A payment processor is a system that enables financial transactions, commonly employed by a merchant, to handle transactions with customers from various channels such as credit cards and debit cards or bank accounts. They are usually broken down into two types: front-end and back-end.
National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) is an Indian state-owned organization that operates retail payments and settlement systems in India. The organization is an initiative of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Indian Banks' Association (IBA) under the provisions of the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007, for creating a robust payment and settlement infrastructure in India.
Cheque Truncation System (CTS) or Image-based Clearing System (ICS), in India, is a project of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), commenced in 2010, for faster clearing of cheques. CTS is based on a cheque truncation or online image-based cheque clearing system where cheque images and magnetic ink character recognition (MICR) data are captured at the collecting bank branch and transmitted electronically.
Financial Fraud Action UK is the name the financial services industry uses to coordinate its fraud prevention activities.
The Australian Payments Council is the strategic coordination body for the payments industry. It promotes industry collaboration and engages directly with the Reserve Bank of Australia’s Payments System Board (PSB).
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