ACCC Authorises Industry Collaboration on Australia's Payments Future: What this means.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has granted authorisation AA1000690 for an 18-month industry collaboration to shape the future of Australia's account-to-account payments infrastructure. 

Here's our 10 point summary on key things to know for different Australia payments industry participants and providers.

1. Who's Involved

Australian Payments Network Limited (AusPayNet) and Australian Payments Plus (AP+) are leading this initiative on behalf of BECS members, NPP members, and other relevant businesses in the account-to-account payments ecosystem. The Customer Owned Banking Association (COBA) has also been specifically included as an authorised party.

2. The Mission and Legal Rationale

The collaboration aims to develop a common industry vision for the future of account-to-account payments infrastructure and reach an in-principle agreement on how to achieve this future state. This directly supports the Government's 2023 announcement backing an industry-led transition from BECS.

Why Legal Protection is Required: Normally, when financial institutions (direct competitors) meet to coordinate strategy and share information, this violates competition law. The ACCC authorisation provides legal protection because the public benefits of coordinated infrastructure modernisation outweigh competitive concerns. Without this protection, institutions could face prosecution under cartel and anti-competitive arrangement provisions.

Benefits for Industry Participants: The coordinated approach reduces duplicated planning costs, provides regulatory certainty, enables shared risk management, and creates a unified voice for engaging with government. Rather than 90+ institutions independently managing their own transition plans, the industry can leverage collective expertise and resources.

Customer Benefits: Consumers and businesses gain from reduced transition risks, maintained payment system stability, and accelerated access to modern payment capabilities including real-time processing, enhanced security features, and 24/7 availability that NPP offers over the aging BECS infrastructure.

3. Three-Tier Governance Structure

The framework operates through three distinct forums:

• Roundtable: Primary forum hosted by AusPayNet, including the RBA, Treasury, and invited businesses

• AusPayNet Member Workshop: BECS members providing input via the Payments Review Committee

• AP+ Standing Committee: NPP members advising on specific matters (if constituted)

4. BECS Timeline Confirmed

The conditional target end-date for BECS closure remains June 2030. This collaboration is designed to ensure an orderly transition rather than individual institutions managing their own ad-hoc migration plans.

5. Mandatory Competition Oversight

All meetings must include an ACCC-approved external lawyer with competition law expertise. This lawyer has instructions to immediately flag any conduct that risks breaching competition law or falls outside the authorisation scope.

6. Quarterly Transparency Reports

Every three months, applicants must provide public reports to the ACCC, RBA, and Treasury detailing meeting minutes, material activities, discussions, and any governance changes. These reports will be published on the ACCC's public register.

7. Regulatory Guardrails

The RBA and Treasury play key oversight roles, ensuring public interest considerations are embedded in the process. No in-principle agreement can be reached without their involvement, providing important policy and stakeholder perspective checks.

8. Implementation Requires Separate Approval

This authorisation covers discussions and reaching agreement only. Any implementation of the agreed future state will require a separate ACCC authorisation application, ensuring additional scrutiny of actual implementation plans.

9. Risk Management Focus

The collaboration specifically addresses the RBA's identified risks of a disorderly BECS exit, including NPP capacity constraints, contingency planning gaps, and resilience challenges. The coordinated approach aims to prevent fragmented individual responses that could destabilise the payments system.

10. Broad Stakeholder Engagement Expected

While the core participants are defined, the ACCC expects consultation with critical service providers and end users. The structure allows for inviting relevant businesses to roundtable discussions when their input would benefit the outcomes.

What This Means

This authorisation provides legal protection for collaborative discussions that would otherwise risk breaching competition law. It reflects recognition that coordinating such a significant infrastructure transition serves the public interest, despite involving competitor collaboration.

The 18-month timeframe runs until 31 January 2027, providing a structured window for the industry to align on the post-BECS future. With the RBA's risk assessment highlighting the complexity of migrating three-quarters of Australia's non-cash payment volumes, this coordinated approach aims to ensure the transition enhances rather than disrupts our payments ecosystem.

What This Means for Different Stakeholders:

Major Banks: The Big Four and other Tier 1 institutions gain certainty around industry coordination while maintaining competitive positioning. They can openly discuss migration strategies, share infrastructure costs, and align on timing without competition law risks. This reduces individual planning costs and provides collective bargaining power with technology providers.

Second Tier/Community Owned Banks: Smaller institutions benefit most from coordinated planning, as they typically lack resources for independent infrastructure transitions. COBA's specific inclusion ensures community banks have voice in shaping solutions that work for their scale and customer base, rather than being forced into unsuitable enterprise-focused alternatives.

Payment Service Providers and Fintechs: Non-bank payment providers gain unprecedented transparency into traditional banking infrastructure decisions. The "other businesses relevantly concerned" provision allows Fintechs to influence industry direction, potentially creating opportunities for alternative solutions or partnerships during the transition period.

Payments Consulting and Advisory Service Providers: Under this ruling, consulting firms are now better enabled to help clients interpret industry-wide developments and translate them into actionable institutional strategies. The quarterly reporting creates ongoing advisory opportunities around compliance, strategic positioning, and competitive response planning.

Major Payment Industries and Customers: Payroll providers, utility companies, and other bulk payment users gain visibility into transition planning, enabling them to prepare systems and processes. End customers benefit from reduced transition risks and coordinated communication about changes to payment services they rely on daily.

The determination comes into effect on 23 August 2025, unless reviewed by the Australian Competition Tribunal.