The Payments System Board February 2024 meeting update includes a discussion of its annual review of payment systems.

The Board affirmed that the Reserve Bank Information and Transfer System (RITS) is currently the only domestic systemically important payment system.

The review also considered prominent payment systems, which are systems where an outage could cause significant economic disruption and damage confidence in the financial system.

Members affirmed that the New Payments Platform, Visa, Mastercard and eftpos (all declared as critical infrastructure by the Government) continue to be prominent payment systems.

With respect to the Bulk Electronic Clearing System (BECS) which is due to be decommissioned by industry by June 2030, the Reserve Bank will be engaging with industry to understand how the significant changes required to facilitate decommissioning and any associated risks are being managed.

BECS is currently Australia’s primary system for account-to-account payments, facilitating most salary, welfare, and pension payments, and a significant disruption could cause serious economic harm to end users.

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