Australia has fast payments — but other countries use them much more

Australia's New Payments Platform has transformed the speed at which money can move between bank accounts. But new international data suggest Australia is still some distance from being a world leader in the use of fast payments.

According to the latest Bank for International Settlements Red Book statistics, Australians made 61 fast payments per person in 2024.

That equates to around 1.66 billion fast payments during the year, or an average of approximately 4.5 million every day.

Usage is also growing quickly. Australian fast-payment volumes increased 18.5 per cent in 2024.

But international comparisons put that growth into perspective.

Brazil recorded 298 fast payments per person, Korea 189 and India 127. Among advanced Asian and European economies, Hong Kong and Sweden recorded around 95 per person and Singapore 83.

Australia's 61 was nevertheless substantially ahead of the Netherlands at 31, Spain at 18, Japan at 17 and France at just nine.

Australia's New Payments Platform (NPP) was publicly launched in February 2018. It allows payments to be made around the clock with near-immediate availability of funds to recipients.

The striking feature of the BIS figures is therefore not a lack of Australian fast-payments infrastructure. It is the enormous difference between countries in how heavily that infrastructure is actually used.

Fast payments represented only 7.9 per cent of Australian cashless transactions in 2024. That partly reflects Australia's exceptionally heavy use of cards: as shown in our previous comparison, Australians made almost 577 card and e-money payments per person during the year.

The next stage of payments policy should consequently be less about building faster infrastructure and more about how that infrastructure is used.

BIS research finds that fast-payment adoption tends to be higher where systems have broader use cases, greater participation by non-banks and stronger public-sector involvement.

Australia has successfully built the rails. The international evidence suggests there remains considerable scope to run more payments over them.

Source: Bank for International Settlements, CPMI Red Book statistics, 2024.