The NPP is Australia’s fast payments infrastructure, bringing certainty and efficiency to payments – and setting Australia up for the digital future. 

Launched in 2018, the NPP connects over 120 banks, financial institutions and fintechs, facilitating around $6 billion of payments each day, with money quickly and securely between bank accounts using products like Osko, PayID and PayTo. 

The NPP uses ISO 20022, which is an International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) format used for electronic data interchange between financial institutions or organisations that move money and data. The benefit of ISO 20022 is that it is a global standard with messages that convey more data than most other messaging formats. There are two important parts to the NPP:  
 
The Platform  
The NPP infrastructure is a distributed architecture of ‘Payment Access Gateways’ that route and exchange messages between each other. Payments can either be directed to BSB and account numbers or to a PayID (information such as an email address, phone number, ABN number or a unique organisational identifier that can be linked to a user’s bank account). The platform is always on, 24 hours a day, 365 days of the year.  
 
The Fast Settlement Service  
The Fast Settlement Service (FSS) is provided by the Reserve Bank of Australia. This world-leading capability enables every NPP payment, regardless of its size, to be settled in real-time in central bank funds between participating financial institution’s Exchange Settlement Account (ESA).  

There are over 120 financial institutions that offer NPP enabled payment services, such as Osko, PayID and PayTo. You can find them here. 

In today’s digital economy, payment speed and efficiency are essential. In the last decade, real-time payments have transformed the way money moves around the world.  

In Australia, the NPP was designed to enable individuals, businesses, and government agencies to make real-time payments 24/7, with funds available within seconds. It also supports richer payment information and simpler addressing options, such as using a phone number or email instead of a BSB and account number. 

Businesses and government agencies can access NPP solutions through their bank or payment service provider. Consumers in Australia are already making and receiving NPP payments via their bank with Osko, PayID and PayTo. 
 
To learn more, check out Osko, PayID & PayTo for more information.  

There are several pathways to access the NPP, designed to enable as many financial institutions, fintechs and payment providers as possible to reap the benefits of the NPP. 
 
Become an NPP Participant 
Organisations that clear and settle payments on behalf of their customers can connect directly to the platform if they are an Authorised Deposit-taking Institution (ADI) or a Restricted ADI (RADI). Because funds move across the platform in real-time, prudential safeguards are required to meet international standards for real-time payments systems (as set out by the Bank for International Settlements). A directly connected Participant also needs to meet the technical requirements of standing up and maintaining an NPP Payment Access Gateway (PAG) in a real-time environment. A PAG is the part of the NPP infrastructure that enables the transmission and exchange of messages between other PAG holders. 
 
Become an ‘Identified Institution’ 
An Identified Institution can offer customers NPP enabled payments via an arrangement with a directly connected NPP Participant who can clear and settle payments on their behalf. This kind of arrangement negates the need to be either an ADI or a RADI, as well as the need to install and support an NPP Payment Access Gateway. This is the most popular way to access the platform with the majority of participating organisations currently accessing the NPP this way. Today there are a number of directly connected Participants that offer this type of connectivity arrangement, including organisations whose business model is focused on providing wholesale access to payment systems. 
 
Become a ‘Connected Institution’ 
A ‘Connected Institution’ is an organisation that connects directly to the NPP so they can initiate payments with participating financial institutions. These could include organisations like payroll providers or share registries. Because these organisations are not directly processing or clearing payments they are not required to be an ADI or RADI. However, they are required to be able to meet the technical requirements to stand up and maintain their own NPP PAG in a real-time environment. 

NPP Australia has developed an API Framework which defines the key technical approach and mandatory data attributes for NPP APIs, aligned to ISO 20022 standards.  
To download a copy of the most recent version of the NPP API Framework and view sample APIs, click here.  
 
NPP Australia does not offer APIs, however, some NPP Participants are currently offering these services. Please contact your financial institution or payment service provider to understand if they are offering API services.  
NPPA Australia has also developed an API Sandbox which will help third parties to learn and test the NPP’s capabilities via sample APIs.  
 
Request access to the API Sandbox here. 

In 2023, the Australian government released a Strategic Plan for Australia’s payments systems, identifying significant benefits and opportunities for Australia in modernising its payments infrastructure - including uplifting competition, productivity and innovation across the economy.      
 
The same year, the payments industry announced plans to decommission Australia’s legacy payments platform, the Bulk Electronic Clearing System (BECS).  
  
Traditionally responsible for account-to-account payments like superannuation, payroll, taxes and direct debits, BECS was not designed to meet the demands of the increasingly digitised global and Australian economy and evolving end user expectations.    
 
The planned decommissioning of BECS means all businesses in Australian will need to work with their bank or payment services provider to move their payments off this legacy infrastructure.  

All types of businesses can benefit from the move to NPP. Some of these benefits include greater business efficiencies, optimised cash-flow payment certainty, better customer experiences and greater confidence that payments are going where they are intended. The move to NPP is an opportunity for businesses to uplift their payment and business-related processes. 

The NPP was designed to process single payments line-by-line rather than batching a number of payments together, as occurs on BECS today. This approach was taken to facilitate real-time processing and support the efficiencies that can be delivered from the ability to isolate individual payment issues.   
 
Businesses migrating bulk payments to the NPP have options available:    

Both approaches are being used today as businesses start to migrate their payments to the NPP.  Talk to your financial institution or payment service provider for more information on how to best adapt your payment processes to take advantage of the NPP.

Legacy payment systems do not typically cater for full remittance data, hence outsourced payment solutions have been developed over time to address this gap. The NPP allows real-time 24/7 irrevocable payments and allows standardised data to travel with the payment. This negates the need for multiple outsourced payment solutions and ensures that remittance data will be delivered for matching and reconciliation at the same time payment is completed. 

Many NPP participating financial institutions offer corporate customers a range of reporting and statement options that cater for inward NPP payments. These include new reporting formats based on the ISO 2022 message and APIs that enable corporate customers to ingest new NPP payment types, transaction codes and ISO data fields. As an interim measure, corporate customers may choose to retain existing payment status reporting and bank statements (which may involve the truncation of data) to minimise disruption to matching and reconciliation processes before moving to alternative reporting formats over time. 

The NPP provides a fantastic opportunity for corporate customers to review user hierarchy and approval models. By identifying ways to simplify, streamline and automate manual approval processes, fraud and error in the end-to-end payment process can be reduced. Additionally, a transition to the NPP could leverage direct connectivity and APIs (if not already in place) as the NPP supports transaction level payment initiation and reporting in real-time, thereby removing the need for an additional payment initiation and approval step within banking channels entirely. 

To start taking advantage of real-time data-rich payments, speak with your NPP participating financial institution or payment service provider to consider a migration plan that takes into account your immediate needs and allows you to take advantage of the full benefit of the NPP over time. 

To make a payment via the NPP you need to have an account with any of the financial institutions who are offering NPP payment services. Find out which financial institutions are involved here. 

Many financial institutions offer payments via the NPP. You can search them here. If they’re not there yet, chances are they could be soon. It’s best to ask your financial institution when they plan to offer payments via the NPP. 

 

Osko enables fast payments within your online banking between participating financial institutions. If you see the Osko logo at the end of your bank transfer, whether you’re paying to a PayID or BSB and account number, you’ll know your payment will be sent fast. Some Osko payments may be held for security purposes. Contact your financial institution for more information. 
 
You can find out more about Osko here. 

A PayID is an easy-to-remember piece of information such as your mobile number or email address that’s linked to your bank account, that you can use to receive payments into your account. Businesses can also use their ABN or Organisation Identifier as their PayID. 
You can create a PayID in your online banking. 
 
You can find out more about PayID here.

The NPP supports payments to both BSB and account numbers and PayIDs, so the choice is yours. 

PayTo is a secure payment option that lets you pay directly from your bank account using your PayID, or BSB and account number. It gives you more visibility and control over your payments in your online banking. 
 
You can find out more about PayTo here.

The NPP does not have transaction limits. However participating financial institutions can set limits if they deem it necessary. Contact your participating financial institution to find out if transaction limits apply. 

If you have a question regarding payments on the NPP please contact your NPP participating financial institution. 

Payment services supported by the NPP, like Osko and PayID, are now widely available. As of 31 March 2025, over 114 million accounts can make and receive an NPP payment. 

The NPP has been built with security and fraud front of mind. NPP payments are made by logging in to your usual secure internet or mobile banking and authorising a payment. PayTo agreements are also authorised within the security of your online banking. For extra peace of mind, if you are sending a payment using a PayID, you will also be able to check the name of the person you want to pay before confirming the payment. As always, you should be on the look-out for scammers who could try and trick you into making a payment. You can find more information about this here. 

The NPP supports international payments coming into Australia for the final domestic leg of the payment process. Outbound international payments are also supported by a number of financial institutions and money remittance providers.  

Every business is different, so the exact steps to move to real-time payments can vary depending on factors like the size and complexity of your operations, your existing payments and payroll systems, and the financial institutions or payment service providers you work with. A phased approach can make the transition more manageable and is being adopted by many businesses today. How businesses consider a phased approach will depend on where individual businesses see the greatest benefits. 

 

The best way to start is by speaking with your financial institution or payment service provider. They can assess your current set-up and guide you through the available options, including how to integrate real-time payments in a way that suits your business needs.  

To get ready for the proposed payday super legislation, you’ll need to ensure your payroll and superannuation systems can process super contributions every payday, which may be more frequent than you are currently paying contributions. We recommend you: 

Employers can continue using other payment methods such as BPAY and BECS direct entry to meet their superannuation obligations under payday super. Payments using these methods can take up to three business days to clear, so it is important to assess the ability for employer contributions to reach super funds within seven calendar days of an employee’s payday, especially during weekends and over public holidays. We recommend you speak to your financial institution or payroll service provider to understand your options.  

The NPP has safeguards to provide more confidence you’re paying the right person or business:    
  

Yes, the NPP has the capacity and capability today to handle all Australian superannuation payments. In terms of value, in calendar 2024 employer superannuation contributions totalled AUD144.0 billion¹, whereas the NPP transacted over 13x that value over the year, at AUD1.99 trillion. In terms of volume, it’s estimated that 200 million employer contribution payments are currently made each year, with this number expected to triple under payday super as the frequency of payments increases². Given that 1.63 billion transactions were processed on the NPP in 2024, the NPP infrastructure is already handling payment volumes larger than the projected number of super payments. 

We’re also ensuring that the NPP will be able to handle future volume growth and will continue to implement additional capacity upgrades. 

 

[1] APRA releases superannuation statistics for December 2024 | APRA
[2] Page 7 GNGB Payday super unpacked 2024_PaydaySuper_v4_web.pdf

All superannuation payments can be processed within current NPP capacity and capabilities. Businesses can continue to provide a bulk or batch payment instruction file to their financial institution or payment service provider who will process these transactions individually on the NPP.  

Although it’s not required for payday super, AP+ is working separately with industry on a multi-credit transfer (MCT) service, to allow a batch of single payments to be grouped into a single bulk (MCT) payment message to be made between two financial institutions. This will cater for the small number of use cases of large bulk files required by some government and corporate customers. 

AP+ is actively working with the superannuation industry, including the ATO, Treasury, clearing houses and super funds. This includes:  

Under current obligations, employer super contributions are only required to be paid within 28 days of the end of each quarter, making it difficult for employees and the ATO to spot missed or underpaid contributions. Under payday super, super payments will be made at the same time as salary and wage payments. These more frequent super payments, on time and in full, will help reduce unpaid super and increase transparency and accountability of employer super contributions. 

Clearing houses and other super payment intermediaries will continue to play a role facilitating the processing of employer super contributions. They will continue to receive payments from employers and make payments to super funds. By transitioning to payments on the NPP, employer payments will be received by clearing houses and made to super funds in real-time, speeding up the employer contributions process. The NPP also offers the capability for clearing houses and other super payment intermediaries to migrate current direct debit agreements they have with employers to PayTo agreements, which are processed on the NPP in real-time. PayTo also provides the ability for a super payment intermediary to coordinate a payment by debiting an employer account and crediting a super fund account directly. 

The ATO has been working with the super industry and AP+ to update SuperStream standards to support payday super, including incorporating NPP-related fields such as PayID and streamlining SuperStream contribution error messages. 

AP+ is also working with the ATO to include NPP as an approved payment method under SuperStream Data and Payment Standards. This will replace the existing guidance where an agreement needs to be established with a super fund to send payments via the NPP. NPP already supports the inclusion of the Payment Reference Number (PRN) which is used to link the payment to the corresponding SuperStream message. 

And AP+ is also working with financial institutions to enhance NPP super payment messages with additional data to further support parties in their obligations under payday super. This includes an optional payroll pay date field, which is not available in the SuperStream message, and the ’tagging’ of a refund payment from a super fund to an employer or clearing house to support reconciliation with any SuperStream contribution error messages. 

To support super payments over the NPP, systems and upgrades may be required by different parties across the industry: 
 

The NPP infrastructure itself is ready, and the supporting systems across payroll, super payment intermediaries, super funds and administrators may need to make updates to realise the full benefits of real-time super payments. 

A PRN is a unique identifier that links a superannuation payment to its matching SuperStream data message.  

A PRN is a unique identifier that links a superannuation payment to its matching SuperStream data message. 

 The PRN enables reconciliation and allocation of super payments, enabling super funds, administrators and clearing houses to match the SuperStream contribution message (CTR) to the corresponding payment.  
If the PRN is missing or doesn’t match exactly between the payment and the data message, the receiving party may not be able to match/allocate the contribution, exceptions are generated and manual resolution is typically required – creating potential errors and delays. 
 
The PRN is crucial for super funds to be able to reconcile contributions and ensure the efficient allocation of super payments.  

In 2019, following consultation with the superannuation industry, all financial institutions were mandated to carry through the PRN for payments identified as superannuation payments. 
As a result, the financial institution receiving the superannuation payment (an NPP Payee Participant) must make the data elements available to their payee customers, including the PRN, in the transaction reporting used by customers such as clearing houses and super funds.