30 January 2025

Following the release of our inaugural product roadmap in 2024, we are pleased to publish our updated 2025 roadmap that combines our product and infrastructure priorities. The 2025 AP+ Roadmap outlines key industry and regulatory requirements alongside other major initiatives.​

Key updates include:​

• Click to Pay for eftpos​
• Consolidated developer portal and consolidated member portal​
• NPP multi-credit transfer solution design​
• NPP process and message usage uplift​

Along with the above changes we are confirming December 2026 as the delivery date to upgrade the ISO 20022 version that the NPP operates on. ​

Exploratory work also continues, and any successful developments will be included in future roadmap updates.​

We will continue to engage with the industry and our members as we progress, and updated versions of the AP+ roadmap will be published annually.​

The 2025 AP+ Roadmap outlines key industry and regulatory requirements alongside other major initiatives.

Move to NPP: to prepare for the decommissioning of BECS in 2030, we are focusing on ensuring the NPP has the capability, capacity, reach and resilience to easily manage the expected volume of direct entry payments. This work includes:

• NPP process & message usage uplift: developing an approach for the return of bulk payments processed through the NPP; introducing batch identifiers to support the grouping of transactions; introducing a standard payment instruction format that end users can provide to their financial institution; and uplifting PayTo message usage (Merchant Category Codes, Ultimate Creditor) to support improved fraud screening.
• NPP ISO version upgrade: upgrading the ISO20022 version that the NPP operates on to enable software integrations by international vendors and benefit from innovations adopted in other markets.
• NPP Multi Credit Transfer solution: AP+ will begin detailed design work with industry in 2025 to support high-volume bulk payments with multiple transactions contained within a single message.
• NPP cloud migration: this will allow directly connected participating organisations to integrate their back office with the NPP platform infrastructure via public cloud providers.
• NPP capacity upgrades: ensuring that processing capacity is uplifted across the platform and participating organisations.

Mobile Least Cost Routing (LCR) implementation: the industry is expected to support mobile LCR by the end of 2024.

QR acceptance: our goal is to enable initiation for in-store payments using any smart device, initially via QR. It aims to provide consumers with a greater variety of services at the point of sale and integrate other experiences such as loyalty programs or simplified integrated initiation.

eftpos – token cryptogram: introducing a token cryptogram for cardholder-initiated transactions to enhance the security and efficiency of the Australian payment ecosystem, while fostering customer trust, and compliance with evolving industry standards.

Confirmation of Payee (CoP):  a layer of protection for payments to a BSB and account number in Australia. By matching the account name, BSB and account number entered with the details held by the recipient’s bank, Confirmation of Payee gives more confidence that payments are going to the right account.

eftpos – Click to Pay implementation: AP+ is standing up a Click to Pay service with the ambition to streamline e-commerce checkout and make it consistent, convenient and secure.

NPP PayTo porting: allow consumers to move PayTo agreements between financial institutions without having to contact each merchant and re-authorise their PayTo agreements. This will reduce the impact on merchants when their customers change banks.

Osko / SCT harmonisation: brings together the BPAY OSKO service with the native Single Credit Transfer (SCT) NPP product to simplify real-time payments into a single service, with a single brand and clear value proposition, streamlined rules and associated operational processes.

eftpos to update to 3DS 2.3: AP+ plans to support 3DS 2.3 to help reduce cart abandonment rates and provide enhanced risk management.

3DES migration to AES: Australian card payments will be migrated from 3DES to a new encryption standard (AES) by 2030.

Portal consolidation: AP+ is consolidating the developer experience across our products into a singe developer portal. We are also creating a single front door for members with a unified and streamlined member portal.

Cyber security capability uplift, fraud capability uplift and trust layer: AP+ is uplifting its maturity in the foundational cyber capabilities required to govern, identify, protect, detect, respond and recover from cyber incidents. AP+ is also expanding fraud capability across each AP+ scheme and supporting industry fraud and scam initiatives.

Source: 2025 AP+ Roadmap – Australian Payments Plus

After a weak year overall for Australian consumer spending, Visa’s Australia Spending Momentum Index (SMI) remained in expansion territory at 100.7 in January. The reading’s relative consistency with the previous month, which included strong holiday sales, bodes well for a sustained recovery. Spending momentum improved in all states and territories except for the Australian Capital Territory. While Victoria and Queensland were the only two states with readings below 100, their first readings for 2025 were above their 2024 averages and are on track to hit the 100 mark.  Following the holiday shopping season, the discretionary SMI fell 2.9 points to a still-solid 101.5 in January. The index stayed above 100 for the ninth consecutive month, indicating strength in spending momentum on non-essentials, such as travel. The index for all states and territories remained at healthy levels, with Queensland having the strongest reading. At the same time, restaurant spending momentum saw a decline, led by the Northern Territory and South Australia. By contrast, the non-discretionary index inched up 1.4 points to 99.3, with the strongest improvement in two states that experienced weak consumer spending in 2024: Tasmania and South Australia.  With inflation slowing, consumer spending is expected to be resilient, with geopolitics and the pace of interest rate cuts two major risk factors to watch.

Spending Momentum Index (Seasonally adjusted,* ≥100 = expansion, <100 = contraction), last actual: January 2025

Download the Complete Report

*The discretionary and non-discretionary categories exclude restaurant and gas spending; both restaurant and gas are included in the total SMI. See additional definitions of spending categories on page 3 of the attached report.

Source: Visa Business and Economic Insights. The Visa Australia SMI measures the current month relative to the same month last year. The national readings of the index are based on year-over-year changes in consumer spending with Visa bankcards.

Download your copy of the Annual Report 2024 today.

During this Scams Awareness Week, we’re sharing our top tips to combat scams. Following on from Safeguarding older and vulnerable individuals from scams today we bring you the next tip in our series.

Tip 2: Protect your data like you protect your wallet!

Financial institutions spare no effort in combating fraud and protecting their customers from scammers, and there are thousands of people working around the clock to protect you and your money.

However, in recent years scammers have realised they are competing with advanced multimillion-dollar fraud detection controls and systems, and therefore the path of least resistance is to trick customers into helping them bypass the fraud controls that are put in place for customer protection.

The truths we must acknowledge:

1. Scammers already have some of your data

There’s an alarming amount of compromised data out there, and scammers are becoming increasingly skilled at exploiting it. The numerous Australian data breaches publicised widely are just the tip of the iceberg.

You can check how many data breaches have involved your details at this website: https://haveibeenpwned.com/

2. If you think you are too smart to be scammed, you are a great target!

Scammers, armed with your stolen data, can piece together a comprehensive profile of their targets. That seemingly innocent chat on WhatsApp or a transaction on Facebook Marketplace can be a data-mining expedition. This, in turn, can be exploited to build trust and manipulate people into compliance.

The following are some steps you can take to shield yourself from scams:

• Stay informed: Learn from the experiences of scam victims, by putting yourself in the victim’s situation and considering how the controls you have in place could have protected you in their situation.
• Limit personal information sharing: Be cautious about the amount of personal information you share on social media ,and tighten your security settings. The less scammers know about you, the harder it is for them to craft convincing scams.
• Enable Two-Factor Authentication (2FA): Whenever possible, enable 2FA for your online accounts. This adds an extra layer of security, making it significantly more difficult for scammers to gain access to your accounts.
• Have strong, unique passwords: Don’t underestimate the importance of strong, unique passwords for each of your online accounts. Consider using a reputable password manager to help you generate and store them securely.

Your data is your digital identity, and safeguarding it is vital. Scammers can use your data to gain trust, manipulate, and exploit vulnerabilities.

By taking steps to protect your data and sharing this knowledge with others, we can collectively defend against data-driven scams and build a safer digital world.

Australians have lost $430 million to scams already in 2023, and as Christmas approaches, we can expect another spike in scam activities.

Here’s our top tips to combat scams.

Tip 1: Safeguarding older and vulnerable individuals

Equipping ourselves and our loved ones with the knowledge needed to fend off scams is crucial.

In this digital age, scams can affect anyone, regardless of age or technological know-how. However, older, and more vulnerable individuals tend to fall prey to scams more often.

In 2023, Australians over 65 have lost more than $108 million to scams and represented one in four of all scam reports. 

To combat scams effectively, it’s important to educate those at higher risk of becoming a victim. Sharing our knowledge, experiences, and staying vigilant empowers them to recognise and respond to potential threats.

Here are a few suggestions on how we can play a vital role in protecting our loved ones:

Initiate conversations

Be a trusted, non-judgmental resource available at any hour of the day. Engage in open discussions with older family members, friends, and acquaintances about the potential dangers lurking online. Encourage them to ask questions and share their concerns.

Teach them to identify red flags

Educate older individuals about common scam warning signs such as unsolicited calls, suspicious emails, requests for personal information, or high-pressure sales tactics. Equipping them with this knowledge improves their confidence in navigating scam scenarios.

Encourage scepticism

Encourage healthy scepticism and a “trust but verify” approach when encountering unknown or unfamiliar entities. Remind them to independently verify the legitimacy of offers, requests, or investments before committing to any action.

If it doesn’t feel right, JUST HANG UP!

Phone scams result in more monetary loss than any other method. If someone on the phone is making them uncomfortable or is moving too fast, they can always hang up! Scammers feed on people’s politeness. It’s better to risk offending someone than to risk a scammer taking all of your hard-earned money.

We encourage you to share with your vulnerable loved ones so that we can all be protected.

Let’s work together to ensure we’re all protected from the harms of scams. By extending our helping hands, we can make a significant impact in their lives and collectively build a stronger and safer community.

For additional information on supporting scam victims, visit the Scamwatch website: https://www.scamwatch.gov.au/protect-yourself/help-someone-whos-being-scammed

Read more scam-busting tips:

Protecting your digital identity

Indue client Southern Cross Credit Union (SCCU) are leading the way in adopting sustainable business practices to reduce their carbon footprint, with the upcoming release of a new card made from recycled materials.

The recycled PVC card product is made from waste derived from PVC Toys, Medical and electric plastic, and contribute to around 65% reduction in the SCCU’s card production carbon footprint, will be in the hands of their customers soon.

SCCU CEO Stuart Edwards said the key driver for adopting the use of recycled cards was feedback from customers.

“We listen to our customers, and we are going ahead with recycled cards based on customer feedback that they support SCCU’s commitment to making a positive impact for a more sustainable future,” Mr Edwards said.

“This change will see over 132kgs of plastic waste recycled into our bank cards over the next 4 years.

“At SCCU we are constantly implementing initiatives to reduce our footprint, and offering cards made from recycled materials, that can also be recycled, is another step in the right direction for SCCU as it will significantly reduce the waste and carbon emissions of our current plastic cards.

“This is another way we are adapting our operations to reduce carbon emissions and to ensure we are acting responsibly and playing our part to manage our impact on the environment.”

Indue CEO Derek Weatherley said Indue is pleased to partner with SCCU on its implementation of the recycled PVC card.

“Plastic waste is one of a myriad of sustainability challenges faced by the planet, and so it’s pleasing to see mutual banks adopting more sustainable solutions,” Mr Weatherley said.

“A range of sustainable plastic card solutions are available in the market and Indue has worked in partnership with our clients and our manufacturing partners to make these options easily adoptable by our clients and I believe we will see our clients quickly moving to these solutions as part of their sustainability programs.

“One of the elements of Indue’s community program lllumin8, is to focus on working with our partners to implement initiatives that address environmental issues to protect our planet.”

Find out more information on how Indue can help you deliver a card program to meet your business goals.

Download your copy of the Annual Report 2023 today.

Two decades ago, a journey began that would change the landscape of financial security. Today, we are celebrating 20 Stellar Years of Orion Financial Crimes—a journey marked by relentless dedication, innovation, and unwavering commitment.

The Origin: A Small Beginning with a Vision
Our story starts with ‘Credit Link,’ a small organisation consisting of just 30 staff members. Within its portfolio were 12 Visa Debit Card clients. However, a significant challenge arose when Visa decided to decommission its daily report of unusual transactions—an essential tool for fraud detection. This left a void that needed to be filled, and Credit Link was ready to step up to the challenge. Credit Link, now proudly known as Indue, embarked on a transformative journey by opting into First Data’s hosted PRM offering. This move was revolutionary in the world of fraud software, marking the beginning of a new era in financial security.

A Critical Decision: Developing a Service Offering
To meet the evolving needs of our clients and enhance their financial security, Indue made a critical decision. We decided to develop a service offering that would not only address the existing challenges but also set new standards in the industry.

Within the first year, our team expanded from 1 Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) to 3 FTE, allowing us to extend our service hours significantly. We went from operating on weekdays from 8 am to 4 pm to a more expansive schedule, covering hours from 7 am to 6 pm, including Saturday mornings.

The Financial Landscape: Then and Now
Looking back, it’s astonishing to see how the financial landscape has evolved over the past two decades. When we began, there were no overnight services, no real-time decline mechanisms, and no investigation case management tools. Transactions were predominantly conducted using magnetic stripe cards with signatures, and concepts like ‘chip and pin’ and ‘Visa Secure’ were yet to emerge. The primary focus of fraud prevention was on card-present scenarios, primarily
countering counterfeit activities. Today, e-commerce fraud, which now dominates the fraud landscape, was not even officially categorised.

Our Unchanging Purpose: Effective Mitigation and Exceptional Service

Throughout the challenges and transformations, our purpose remained constant—to achieve effective and efficient fraud mitigation while delivering exceptional customer service. We navigated uncharted waters, developing processes, procedures, reports, and client engagement strategies on the fly. All of these were driven by our sole aim: to enhance financial security while ensuring our clients’ competitiveness.

A Journey of Transformation and Innovation
As we celebrate 20 stellar years, we take pride in our journey of transformation, innovation, and unwavering commitment to financial security. From a small team managing a handful of clients to becoming a leading force in fraud detection and prevention, our story is one of dedication and excellence. We extend our heartfelt gratitude to our dedicated team, both long-serving members and newcomers, for their continuous efforts in driving positive change. To our clients, who have placed their trust in us for two decades, we say thank you.

Your support has been instrumental in our journey.
As we look ahead, we remain committed to advancing financial security, embracing emerging technologies, and strengthening our partnerships. Orion Financial Crimes, powered by Indue, stands as your reliable financial guardian, safeguarding your assets from harm.

Here’s to celebrating 20 Stellar Years of excellence, and to many more years of securing your financial transactions. Thank you for being part of our remarkable journey.

Find out more about our Orion Financial Crime solution.

Indue is excited to work with Vii and The Card Network (TCN) to launch our first-to-market eftpos digital gift card solution available through Apple Pay and Google Pay.

Our digital gift card technology supports growing customer demand for highly convenient, secure and flexible mobile payment experiences, reflected in the $6 billion value of the national gift card market in 2023.

Indue Chief Executive Officer Derek Weatherley said that digital gift cards offer benefits to both merchants and consumers, and enhances the digital gifting experience.

“We are thrilled to launch our eftpos digital gift card solution, which was first to the Australian market and will allow our clients to provide tailored, personable gifting experiences for their customers,” Mr Weatherley said.

“Digital gift cards enable online and instore purchases, are more secure and support environmental sustainability by eliminating plastic production and delivery.

“As highly customisable digital products that can be issued instantly, digital gift cards are a popular payment solution – both for givers and receivers of the card, as well as merchants who can access sophisticated back-end analytics to improve user experience and distribution.

Indue’s solution is driven via an issuer managed app, which facilitates the issuance of cards to TCN and Vii and allows them to maintain settings for the card and add it directly to an OEM wallet.

Our capability enables us to provide holistic support to card issuers in progressing their digital gift card products through Apple Pay and Google Pay, and we work with our client’s app developers to deliver a tailored solution.

Find out more about how we can help you today with our range of programs.

The results of the Reserve Bank’s 2022 Consumer Payments Survey show that consumers continue to shift from using cash to electronic payment methods – a trend that was accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic and consumers’ preference towards using debit and credit cards and making payments online. Consumers are also increasingly using more convenient payment methods, particularly contactless card payments, by tapping their card or phone. Cards are now used for most in-person payments, even for small transactions that used to be made mostly with
cash.

Download the Report

Source: www.rba.gov.au

View the Indue Announcement

Indue’s Head of Innovation: Jenny Osborne attended the Consumer Data Right (CDR) conference featuring local and international experts, policy makers and founders who discussed the future of the CDR and showcased some exciting emerging use cases. There were ‘use case showcase‘ pitch-style session where founders presented about the CDR powered use cases they are building and bringing to market across payments, lending, climate tech, financial management, financial literacy. Some of the key takeaways from Jenny included:

The Consumer Data Right:

• allows consumers to safely share the data that businesses hold about them
• helps consumers compare between products and services to find offers that best match their needs
• encourages competition between providers, leading to more innovative products and services.

Currently CDR rolled out to Banking and Energy sectors, with plans to move to non-bank Lenders. There have been delays announced recently to the roll out for telecommunications, insurance and superannuation, with expectations it wont be reassessed until end 2024, this recommendation is in line with the independent statutory review that occurred citing the CDR needs time to mature. This also includes the implementation of action initiation, which will require a robust framework to support implementation.

To help CDR players understand the technical requirements ACC have introduced a new consumer data right portal to guide participants through technical requirements.

Keynote address: Australia’s Consumer Data-sharing Regime – A World-Leading Sanitation System for the Digital Economy

According to Scientia Professor Ross Buckley, UNSW it would have been better for Australia to start with simpler industries like Telecommunications or Insurance instead of Banking. He believed that Banking is a complex industry due to the high level of regulation and the large number of players involved.

The implementation process has been sluggish due to some participants exhibiting real inertia and resistance. Banks are also moving at a slow pace. Historically, banks have perceived customer data as their own and have been reluctant to relinquish control. Although many citizens believe that data pertaining to them should be theirs and not belong to banks or any other entity collecting it, privacy legislation supports this notion. However, legally, data is non-rivalrous and cannot be owned by anyone. Citizens have the right to control their data but not to own it.

The CDR will mature as more industries join and collaborate. However, without a formal regulatory regime, the absence of standards makes effective data sharing challenging. Limited data sharing will always constrain the growth of the digital economy. Therefore, it is essential for a policy agency to lead the process, rather than a regulator. An adaptable, living, and responsive framework is necessary for success.

According to his belief, the most prosperous companies view CDR as a data business and subsequently transform it into credit.

Data is the new oil – Globally the top 5 global companies pre-tax profit profile has shifted from all oil to a much bigger focus on Data companies (2 oils, 3 data companies) However, in Australia the top 5 companies are the same as 40 years ago.

Platforms – are the most profitable business model on planet, platforms are enhancing customer experience.

What has saved the most lives in the world? Water and sewerage systems – what can we learn from this? Bring clean, reliable data to business and dispose of unusable data responsibly.

In the UK Action Initiation has really accelerated. Action Initiation “Write access” provides consumers with the power to instruct accredited organisations to initiate actions on their behalf (current framework, consumers can only consent to accredited entities being given access to their data in read-only form).

Action Initiation allows products to become more customised based on risk/ behaviours to enrich the data. Although Consumer Data Right (CDR) presents both risks and opportunities for businesses, it can make options and switching simpler for consumers, and therefore, reducing the likelihood of retaining customers unless businesses are highly proactive in their customer-centric product offerings.

Governments have to bring change and encourage digital identity, driving the digital economy is critical.

CDR and the future of payments

The much anticipated ‘action initiation’ under the Consumer Data Right is on the way, with legislation in Parliament and fresh funding in the recent Federal Budget.

PayTo is a payment initiation system that falls under the Consumer Data Right (CDR). Consumers can use PayTo to kickstart payments and authorize them, with a unique feature of mandates permission. This system is compatible with CDR, and PayTo has mandates that allow others to debit your account, like in the case of gym memberships. This gives consumers the advantage of viewing, cancelling, and amending payments within the app, making subscriptions more manageable. However, there are still legal issues to consider, such as contractual obligations for a 12-month gym term. PayTo was created to replace Direct Debit and speedy fund transfers, but it doesn’t cover all use cases yet. Nevertheless, CDR can fill in the gaps where PayTo falls short.

Adopting NPP and PayTo has taken banks a significant amount of time, and it’s clear that initiating action will require more urgency and support. The regulator can play a critical role in encouraging banks to adopt these systems. While banks have eventually come around and are providing quality, compliant products, it’s important for the government and states to rally the banks. There’s a lot of interest in B2B opportunities for PayTo, like engaging companies for payroll, direct debits, improved controls, automation, and real-time movement of funds. For instance, a skydiving business could benefit from PayTo by reducing the risk of not receiving payment from a travel agent. Under NPP PayTo, the payment would be initiated immediately upon receipt of the coupon, reducing the risk. There are also opportunities for increasing process efficiency by reducing steps, friction, and time.

With PayTo, transferring payments from one bank to another for bill payments will be made possible. This is due to the increasing integration of payments through open data in the CDR system. AP+ recognizes that there is no clear set of rules on where CDR and PayTo begin and end and how they can be effectively merged. During discussions, there was a common theme of overlap between NPP/PayTo, CDR, and Digital Identity and the need for standardization with the involvement of the government and other stakeholders.

In the ever-evolving world of financial services, innovation driven by consumer demand and Australian-mandated obligations continue to be the driving force pushing our businesses forward.

The PayTo initiative is a key part of the New Payments Platform (NPP) that is set to modernise direct debits, provide an alternative to card payments, and give customers greater control over their payments.

The system is designed to allow customers to manage recurring payments in bank apps and pay directly via bank accounts, and is designed to reduce payment costs for retailers.

Innovative Insights | Outstanding Outcome

“We feel that there is a commitment between Indue and Ultradata to work together in a way that is genuine and positive. There are a number of projects either in place or coming up, that we are partnering with Indue for. This is the way to achieve the best results.”

David Rowe, Senior Manager of Business Solutions at Ultradata

Recently a collaborative effort between Ultradata and Indue was taken to start the journey of delivering the PayTo gateway to Indue’s NPP participating client base.

The key deliverables for the project were:

• Meeting the NPP mandate.
• Creating and developing the NPP PayTo solution.
• Integrating the solution into Ultradata and Indue’s systems.

There were three key partners involved in the delivery of the NPP PayTo software solution:

• Ultradata
• Indue
• BankVic

Ultradata, crafting a user-friendly interface: Ultradata’s responsibilities included designing and developing the user interface, and assuring that the end product delivered a solution that met the industry requirements and exceeded customer expectations.

Indue, the NPP participant: Indue possessing a direct relationship with NPP Australia (NPPA) was pivotal to delivering a seamless NPP PayTo ecosystem, and held the responsibilities of defining, testing, and certifying the solution’s readiness.

BankVic, the Early Adopter: Ultradata and Indue were looking for a mutual client that had the experience and strong technical capability to onboard as an early adopter. BankVic was identified as a bank that had the right operating environment and had the prerequisites required to navigate the complexities of an early adopter, and one that would be able to integrate the NPP PayTo software within its core banking system, comprehensively test the product, and validate its functionality and usability within a specific timeframe.

“As the early adopter, I have seen, at times, 3 or 4 developers jumping onto a call to help us to work through some of the issues. As the early adopter we had Ultradata’s full attention. It was a real benefit.”

Gaetan Thillou, Project Manager, BankVic

Harnessing Knowledge | Leveraging Strengths

Since May, rigorous testing has paved the way for the solution to go into production, covering user acceptance testing and several phases of industry-specified testing, including testing with other industry partners. There was a multitude of steps and processes taken to deliver each early adopter milestone that respectively were aimed at meeting the outlined key deliverables.

By leading the way as an early adopter, BankVic not only tested NPP PayTo’s functionality in real-world scenarios, but also played a part in shaping the product to the direct needs of their business and to be compliant to the NPP requirements.

The lessons learned from BankVic’s early adoption have provided a blueprint for a smoother and more effective adoption process for Ultradata’s and Indue’s other mutual clients.

“The beauty about being in the mutual space is that it is a collaborative community; everyone is helping each other, with the early adaptor role for each project being shared amongst the mutuals. It provides a lot of benefits across the community.”

Gaetan Thillou, Project Manager at BankVic

The teams worked together to draw on the strengths of each other to make the solution even more innovative. One of these was Indue’s creation of a Test Portal to allow both Ultradata and the client to “self-serve” their testing needs by being able to create and update mandates as the initiator. Another was the provision of more user friendly display text in the Indue messages that includes simplified language and structure which is ready to be displayed as-is to the end-customer, eliminating the need for extra client-side processing.

Remarkable Teamwork | Collaborative Spirit

Given the complexity and challenges involved in developing and designing an innovative solution such as NPP PayTo, collaboration was critical to achieving a successful outcome.

Throughout each stage of project delivery, the partners brought their PayTo expertise to help identify and anticipate potential risks and challenges, and develop strategies to manage them.

For example, while the end-user experience might appear straightforward, the backend workings are significantly complex, and there can be varied interpretations of technical requirements and regulations.

Using their years of experience with developing payments solutions, the team successfully navigated this complexity through effective communication, open discussions, and a commitment to building a shared understanding among the partners.

Having a team with the right combination of skills and expertise has reminded us that collaboration truly is the cornerstone of overcoming challenges in order to achieve milestones.

“Working on the PayTo project was a very rewarding and positive experience. The open and honest working relationship between the three parties meant we could navigate through the challenges and achieve a great outcome for all our organisations,”

Simon Bromage, Project Manager at Indue.

Reshaping Payments | Transforming Transactions

Ultradata, Indue, and BankVic have helped pave a way for a future where other financial institutions will be in a position to empower their customers with more control over their bills, and payments, and stand to benefit from the way customers like to do their banking.

“I would like to thank Indue, Ultradata and Experteq for supporting and helping us through the project. The shared commitment and willingness to work together in order to deliver a positive outcome for BankVic members, is particularly pleasing.”

BankVic’s Chief Information Officer, Shane Kuret

The NPP PayTo is a product ready to reshape payment management.

Article produced by Ultradata – September 2023.

According to the 2023 Australian Payment Fraud Report, in 2022, fraud on payment card transactions increased by 16.5% on the previous year to $577 million, in line with the increase in total spending on cards, which was up by 16% to $1 trillion over the same period. The rate of fraud on Australian card payments was 57.5 cents per $1,000 spent, up slightly from 57.3 cents in 2021.

The data indicates that the fraud rate has stabilised since the introduction of the industry’s card-not-present (CNP) Fraud Mitigation Framework (CNP Framework) in 2019, with the 2022 fraud rate remaining well below the fraud rate of 75.0 cents per $1,000 spent in 2017.

The CNP Framework requires merchants who consistently exceed agreed fraud threshold targets to strengthen customer authentication and apply other measures. The framework also encourages secure technologies such as real-time monitoring, machine learning and tokenisation.

AusPayNet sponsors the Economic Crime Forum (ECF), which brings together industry, law enforcement and government stakeholders to coordinate joint responses to economic crime, including scams, fraud, financial crime, and banking-related cyber incidents.

For more information on the data and payment fraud trends, read the 2023 Australian Payment Fraud Report below and the accompanying media release.

• Fraud on lost and stolen cards increased by 44.5% to $41.8 million
• Counterfeit/skimming fraud increased by 30% to $7.1 million
• Card-not-present (CNP) fraud increased by 14.4% to $516.8 million
• Cheque fraud decreased by 24% to $2.4 million

Source auspaynet.com.au

View the Indue Announcement

The Government is releasing its Strategic Plan for the future of Australia’s payments system which sets out its policy objectives and priorities for the payments system.

The Strategic Plan was developed through a consultation process in collaboration with regulators, industry, consumer and business representatives.

The Strategic Plan provides businesses with certainty and clarity on the Government’s approach to important issues in the payments system, allowing businesses to invest with certainty and innovate. The Strategic Plan also outlines the Government’s commitment to ensuring that Australia’s payments system is safe, affordable, can be trusted and will remain readily accessible.

The Strategic Plan will be reviewed on an 18 month review cycle. This will allow the Government to report on its progress against its objectives and priorities, and ensure the Strategic Plan is responsive to advances in technology, competition and changes in consumer demand.

Source: treasury.gov.au/

As adoption of banking apps grows, so does pressure to increase the range of capabilities the apps support, which has security ramifications.

Mobile app-based banking continues to find favour with Australians: more than two-thirds now use a mobile banking app or smartphone to do their banking, and it offers the highest customer satisfaction rating of any banking channel, averaging an 89.4% rating by customers of the ‘Big Four’.

As digital and self-service have been embraced by consumers, particularly in the form of increased use of apps, there’s inevitably pressure to build on that foundation.

A review of the apps of the five major Australian banks mid last year found customers wanted to see more capabilities and functionality added to the apps, particularly around money movement and management to improve financial wellbeing.

Some of these capabilities are being added in via third-party developed plugins created by fintechs, while other banks and credit unions are seeking to code these capabilities and features directly into the apps themselves.

Whichever app expansion strategy is pursued, a key concern will be that the additional functionality brings with it additional security risks. The larger the range of functions that the app can perform, the greater the amount of data it is likely to be handling.

All of these functions combine to create a broad potential attack surface for threat actors, who may view an ever-expanding banking app as a target that continues to increase in value.

Good security provides the confidence to expand apps

In a recent Deloitte survey, building digital trust was rated as the most important business strategy for success by financial institutions in the Asia-Pacific.

One of the top five benefits that cybersecurity investments had in this area was providing “confidence to try new things”, the survey found.

This means that at least in some banks, there’s a direct link between security and app capability growth; if a bank or credit union lacks confidence in their setup, they are less likely to try new things that could increase their security risk or exposure.

Banks and credit unions alike are acutely aware of their critical infrastructure role in Australia, and of the impact that a breach could have on customer confidence and goodwill. The critical nature of banking apps is often on display if they suffer downtime or degraded performance. Customer sentiment can turn quickly if they suddenly cannot perform critical tasks such as contactless payments at a supermarket register. And to be clear: these incidents aren’t often security-related. A security-related impact could prove catastrophic, particularly from an erosion of digital trust perspective, let alone what exposures individual customers could have.

Fortunately, credit unions and banking institutions tend to take a very proactive, best-practice approach to cybersecurity, and this extends to the oversight of their apps.

Many, for example, have focused on upskilling the defensive capabilities of their development teams. Without this education and verification, a lack of expertise may lead to teams taking shortcuts and/or lapsing into human errors, which could trigger configuration issues and code-level vulnerabilities.

Importantly for banks, these vulnerabilities could raise risk thresholds to a point that’s incompatible with, or in breach of, their regulatory requirements. Stringent regulations – including the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS), the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and additional global and national initiatives exist to address issues such as insecure data storage, insufficient authentication/authorisation, poor code quality and code tampering.

These standards create and drive vigilance among risk teams. In their pursuit of app expansion and increased customer satisfaction scores, it is important that developers or customer experience teams do not do anything that would undermine this vigilance and risk position.

Growing role-based security upskilling and awareness

To lay the foundations to proceed with banking app expansion with confidence, a holistic, people-driven security program is beneficial for creating the right mindset and foundational skills base.

A program that takes a dynamic approach based upon real-life threat management scenarios – as opposed to a static learning approach – will gain the most traction quickly. This can include the leveraging of motivational tools, such as rewards for successful “wins” and skills acquired.

Security learning pathways should also be available to everyone with a stake in the bank’s customer success. Developers are just one part of the ecosystem. Other parts of the organisation such as application security (AppSec) professionals and senior management also have key stakes in securing digital experiences and building digital trust. Executives, in particular, need to understand that security is not a “set it and forget it” discipline. A combination of tools and training is the most effective way to maintain the currency of security knowledge and best practices.

A positive security program focused on role-based education and awareness can lead to increased security engagement across the entire organisation, establishing the bank as “security-first.” From that position, unconstrained innovation can safely follow.

Written by Pieter Danhieux, CEO and Co-founder, Secure Code Warrior. Source: australianfintech.com.au

The new National Anti-Scam Centre has launched its first so-called “fusion cell”, pulling together experts from regulators and industry to work on identifying ways of disrupting investment scams.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, which operates the centre, announced yesterday that representatives from the ACCC, ASIC, banks, telcos and digital platforms will work on the project.

Fusion cells are “time-limited taskforces designed to bring together expertise from government and the private sector to address specific, urgent problems”.

The investment scam fusion cell will operate for six months and will target a number of goals: removing scam websites from the internet, stopping scammers reaching potential victims, sharing information about investment scams to assist the private sector to take disruptive activity; providing information to the public; and gathering intelligence to refer to law enforcement.

The ACCC said it will coordinate a series of these groups, with different participants, to target different types of scams.

The government announced in the May budget that it would provide A$58 million of funding for the centre over three years. Banks are expected to play a significant role in the centre’s work.

ACCC deputy chair Catriona Lowe said: “We’ll be using this funding to build the technology needed to support high-frequency data sharing with a range of agencies, law enforcement and the private sector.”

The funding was part of a package of measures announced in the budget, aimed at combatting scams and cyber crime. ASIC was allocated funding to allow it to identify and take down phishing websites and other sites that promote investment scams.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority was allocated funding to establish and enforce an SMS sender ID registry, aimed at impeding scammers seeking to spoof industry and government names in message headers.

Lowe said the Anti-Scam Centre will work with ASIC as it develops its scam website takedown service and support ACMA as it sets up the SMS sender ID registry.

Source: Banking Day, July 4, 2023.

Indue has been a significant player in Australia’s payments sector for more than 50 years. The payments technology provider is an Authorised Deposit Taking institution who specialises in helping organisations of all types adapt to and benefit from the latest innovations in payments technology.

Through its solutions – which encompasses everything from card management and mobile payments to direct entry transactions and real-time fraud detection – Indue aims to eliminate the need for multiple third-party engagements and streamline the payment system implementation process.

Indue is a founding member of Australia’s New Payments Platform (NPP), launched in February 2018 to modernise the nation’s payment infrastructure. The platform enables faster, more flexible and data-rich transactions to meet the evolving needs of Australian consumers, businesses and financial institutions.

Keith Bromwich, Head of Architecture at Indue, says Indue has helped clients adopt the NPP since its inception.

“Our role is to allow tier 2 and 3 financial institutions such as mutuals, regional banks and BAAS providers to access the NPP via our own platform,” he explains.

In June 2023, the NPP introduced PayTo, a new digital way for merchants and businesses to initiate real-time payments from their customers’ bank accounts. PayTo solves many existing challenges with direct debit payments, including processing delays, limited transaction information, and a lack of control for consumers and businesses over payments.

To ensure it could help clients adopt the new payment method, Indue embarked on an ambitious project in March 2022 to transform its technology infrastructure – largely made up of on-premise data centres – and adopt a more cloud-native approach.

“We were trialling Microsoft Azure in pockets of our technology stack, but hadn’t really set it up properly and didn’t quite have the skills to implement some of the amazing capabilities that it offers, like landing zones and event-driven, Zero Trust architecture,” says Bromwich. “We approached Microsoft to recommend a partner that could help us leverage our existing investment in Azure to take advantage of these capabilities and integrate PayTo within the tight deployment timelines mandated by NPP.”

Flexible approach ensures fast implementation 

In May 2022, Indue engaged Microsoft partner Arinco to help it develop enterprise-scale landing zones and a robust application programming interface (API) platform in Azure.

“The people we worked with at Arinco were absolute knowledge leaders,” says Bromwich. “They helped us make the right decisions by providing the pros and cons.”

Arinco used a flexible delivery approach to facilitate development timelines, which saw the first application landing zones for PayTo being implemented by early July 2022. This enabled Indue’s developers to build new capabilities for testing by October 2022.

As this was Indue’s first major deployment of modern web APIs in Azure, Arinco supported and educated Indue’s developers and engineers by leveraging its partnership with Microsoft.

“Firstly, we embedded consultants within Indue’s development teams, focusing on accelerating outcomes and providing best practice guidance for topics such as .NET development, Azure API deployment and security,” says James Westall, Account Executive at Arinco.

“Secondly, our consultants worked with Indue’s platform engineers, sharing our expertise with them as we developed code for each landing zone. This meant that at transition time, Indue engineers were starting from a solid knowledge base.

“Lastly, we partnered with Microsoft to deliver hands-on Azure Accelerate workshops. These covered key topics identified by Indue, enabling employees to get familiar with Azure in a safe environment with instructor guidance.”

The other challenge that Arinco helped Indue solve was the operational sign-off of its Azure capability.

“As an entity that’s regulated by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority, Indue must be able to attest to the security, stability and robustness of its services,” explains Westall. “The deployment that we developed was designed to remain compliant using Azure and third-party security tools, including the capability to hold Payment Card Industry data.

“We also assisted Indue in developing several operational documents and procedures, ensuring key details about running solutions on Azure were available for external auditors.”

Arinco’s accelerated approach enabled Indue to launch its PayTo integration within the tight timeframe and begin onboarding clients in June 2023.

 

Enhancing innovation in the cloud

While Indue is still in the early stages of its cloud journey, its event-driven architecture in Azure is already delivering benefits. These include increased flexibility and scalability, which enable Indue’s developers and engineers to deploy any project – not just PayTo – in the cloud much faster and move from business idea to development workload in minutes or hours rather than days.

“The innovation piece is a key focus for Indue and its customers,” says Ryan Spain, Chief Information Officer at Indue. “Leveraging cloud-based technologies like Azure gives us access to a much wider variety of innovative capabilities in a fraction of the time compared to on-premise, and enhances the products and services we can offer.”

Indue’s move to the cloud has also helped them simplify its technology stack and reduce operational costs. Transitioning its Corporate Services (Virtual Desktop, remote access, and Office environment) to the Azure Virtual Desktop capability which operates within the enterprise-scale landing zone structure.

Now, key personnel can focus more on value-adding tasks rather than maintaining the performance and security of Indue’s hardware and software.

“We don’t have to worry about data centre connectivity or patching. All of that low-level maintenance is done by Microsoft,” says Bromwich.

Indue plans to grow its cloud footprint in Azure by kicking off two other major projects in 2023. One will focus on implementing a big data lake that leverages Microsoft’s advanced analytics capabilities. The other project will focus on migrating Indue’s on-premise Microsoft Dynamics 365 platform to Azure. Both projects will further enhance Indues’ ability to deliver innovative payment solutions and a better customer experience, according to Spain.

“This is a strategic partnership with Microsoft,” he says. “They’ve been on the journey with us from the start, and we really appreciate the assistance and guidance they’ve provided. The partnership has been a key enabler for facilitating both the PayTo integration and our broader cloud strategy.”

Source: Microsoft News 30 June 2023

Government’s Strategic Plan for Payments has been much anticipated since its consultation late last year. Similarly, it was excellent to see today’s announcements of the consultations on the Payment Systems (Regulation) Act and on the new payments licensing regime. Why? Well, collectively they will, in two ways, ensure that Australia’s payments system is fit for the future by:

• enabling the prioritisation of payments initiatives and investments; and
  modernising payments regulation to ensure a “same risk, same rules” approach.
• Together, that will protect and benefit end-users and support innovation. The future of payments starts here and it’s an exciting one.

The Strategic Plan for Payments

A comprehensive plan for the future of payments has been attempted before: by the RBA in 2012 and more recently by AusPayNet. However, Government’s approach adds to those prior attempts by basing the prioritisation of payments initiatives and investments on Government’s policy objectives, and by pledging to review that prioritisation every 18 months.

The Plan also helpfully sets out a path for six key elements of the payments system on which AusPayNet is already engaged: scams; cybersecurity; the future of cheques; the future of BECS; access to cash; and cross-border payments.

Scams

As I have said in other forums, we have a once in a generation obligation to solve for scams, which currently affect far too many Australians. The plan reiterates Government’s prioritisation of the establishing of the National Anti-Scam Centre, and its intent to developing new cross-sectoral, industry anti-scam codes. AusPayNet will work with Government and relevant regulators to leverage AusPayNet’s Economic Crime Forum and understand how AusPayNet can best contribute to the anti-scam codes. Together we can make Australia hostile to scams.

Cybersecurity

In the cybersecurity section of the Plan, the Government calls for the card payments industry to begin migration to the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) in 2025. This is important given, as the plan states, “the requirement for continued uplift in system-wide security standards and practices relating to the security standards and encryption methods for card payment systems.” That uplift requires Australia’s (and the world’s) card payments to migrate to post-quantum computer ready encryption (i.e. AES).

This process will involve migrating almost one million POS terminals, around 25,000 ATMs, all hardware security modules and all card networks in between. As the Plan notes, AusPayNet is currently leading a program of work for this migration, with a view to commencing the actual migration from 2025.

The Future of Cheques

On the future of cheques, the Plan is helpful in two respects.

Firstly, it specifies sunset dates for the Federal Government’s own use of cheques and for the cheques system itself. End-dates of 2028 for the former and 2030 for the latter may seem like long timeframes, but AusPayNet will work with the Federal Government on this, as well as with State Governments and other users. The proposed consultation paper on the future of cheque use in Australia and the support required to retire the cheques system – together with the regular review of the Plan – will be important in understanding whether this date can be brought forward. In considering this question, it is worth noting that both New Zealand and South Africa closed their cheques systems within a year.

Secondly, the Plan proposes reviewing the ongoing role of the Cheques Act. That legislation dates back to 1986 and is unique in legislating requirements around a specific payment type. No other payment method – cash, card, account-to-account – has specific legislation. Changing the Cheques Act would facilitate participants in the payments system – including end-users – proactively moving away from cheques where digital alternatives exist.

The future of BECS

On the future of BECS, the Plan supports the work that AusPayNet is already doing on an industry-led transition away from BECS. The Plan also spells out Government’s role in leading the way in this transition by moving its payments to alternative payment rails.

Access to Cash

The Plan notes that Government will support Australians having continued access to cash. This is important given cash remains a preferred payment method for some Australians. There are three factors which need to be monitored in this regard. The first is access to cash itself, monitored through the RBA’s periodic analysis. The second is acceptance of cash by merchants, which AusPayNet surveys annually. And the third is the efficiency of cash distribution, which the Plan notes is a focus for the RBA, supported by AusPayNet.

Cross-Border Payments

On cross-border payments, the Plan includes two aspects that I would like to call out.

The first is the Plan’s requirement that Australia’s high value payments (through AusPayNet’s High Value Clearing System and the RBA’s Real-Time Gross Settlement System) fully migrate to the ISO 20022 standard by the end of 2025. This aligns with AusPayNet’s existing plan under its program management of the ISO 20022 migration, whereby the current coexistence period for domestic payments ends in November 2024, ahead of the equivalent for cross-border payments in November 2025. It is also important in realising the benefits of the richer data associated with ISO 20022, particularly in terms of anti-money laundering (AML), know your customer (KYC), sanctions screening and straight-through-processing by both financial institutions and end-users.

Secondly, the Plan notes the Financial Stability Board’s roadmap – endorsed by the G20 – for making cross-border payments cheaper, faster, more transparent, and more accessible. AusPayNet’s Cross-Border Payments Advisory Council, which includes Treasury and the RBA, is coordinating Australia’s response to that roadmap and its targets.

The Payment Systems (Regulation) Act

Much like the Cheques Act, the Payment Systems (Regulation) Act (PSRA) is a product of its time (1998). The regulation of payment systems and their participants was simpler in the 1990s for two reasons:

1. by regulating deposits (money-at-rest), payments (money-at-movement) were also regulated, because only Authorised Deposit-taking Institutions (ADIs) processed payments
2. payment systems provided all payments services. Fast forward to 2023, and many payments are processed by non-ADI participants, and payments services are often provided using, rather than by, payment systems (think buy now, pay later, for example, which uses the card or account-to-account payments).
   So, the review of the PSRA is important in enabling the RBA to regulate new forms of payment systems and services, as well as all their participants. The backstop will be a Ministerial designation power to be used in a situation of national interest. Together with a modern approach on payments licensing (see below), these measures will create a level playing field which will protect consumers and support innovation.

Payments Licensing

Treasury’s proposed approach on payments licensing equates to best practice globally. Regulation is now increasingly activity/function based. It is therefore eminently sensible for Treasury’s first consultation to focus on ascertaining the functions that should be subject to a payments license.

Essentially, if you are adding risk to the ecosystem by providing a payments function, you should be licensed and subject to the same regulation and standards as any other participant providing the same function. Simply put, “same risk, same rules”. This will protect end-users and it will support innovation.

It will also promote competition. Evidence from other jurisdictions such as the UK, Europe, Singapore that have payments (or ‘e-money’) licenses shows that innovators are supported by the wider ecosystem because they are licensed, in a way that they would not be supported if they were unregulated.

The first consultation on licensing is exactly that. As it suggests, further consultation will be required on the licensing regime itself, once the functions that are being regulated have been established. And as part of that further work, payments standards-setting bodies will need to be authorised, with their standards then applying to all licensees to ensure interoperability, consumer protection, security, and accessibility of and to the payments system.

To support that aspect of the licensing regime – which will be covered in a future consultation – AusPayNet is currently undertaking a program of work to become an authorised standards-setting body, building on 30 years’ experience and expertise in developing industry standards to respond to emerging trends comprehensively and with agility. We look forward to working with the Treasurer, Treasury, the RBA and other regulators on fleshing out the future regulatory regime for payments.

By Andy White, CEO, AusPayNet – www.auspaynet.com.au

Indue is excited to announce the official launch of its PayTo service offering, enabling financial institutions and payment service providers and platforms to drive payment innovation and improved customer experiences.

A development of Australian Payments Plus on it’s New Payments Platform (NPP), PayTo modernises the way bank accounts are used for payments, helping businesses and consumers thrive in the digital economy.

Indue CEO Derek Weatherley said the PayTo launch is a natural extension of Indue’s NPP capability, which has been helping Australia’s leading mutual and community banks take advantage of flexible, real-time payments with industry-leading financial crime support since 2018.

“At Indue, we are committed to investing in product technology advancements that support our client’s digital transformation, innovation, and competitiveness, exemplified now through PayTo,” Mr Weatherley said.

“We have a team of NPP experts that have already begun to connect partners to PayTo, delivering them a faster, simpler, and smarter real-time payment service.

“We are thrilled to be part of the PayTo revolution and, as always, are keen to help our current and future customers keep pace with the changing Australian payments landscape.

“PayTo will enable a superior payment experience by streamlining payments and improving efficiency and control for consumers and businesses.  This is achieved by PayTo while at the same time reducing risks and modernising the way money moves.

“Ultimately, PayTo further enhances Indue’s digital banking offering, providing a state-of-the-art payment services experience for our customers.”

Indue can connect financial institutions, payment service providers and platforms to PayTo .

To learn more and get PayTo ready, click here.

We sat down with our recently appointed Head of Innovation Jennifer Osborne for an insightful interview about her new role, Indue’s future, and the payments industry at large. Read what she had to say below.

WHY DO YOU THINK INDUE HAS INTRODUCED THIS ROLE?

Innovation is intrinsically linked to growth and business value, making it an essential ability amidst the disruption and change facing the payments sector today. To meet Indue’s core purpose of helping our customers drive their own competitive advantage, it’s essential we keep our product offering strong by staying on top of what’s in the pipeline. I believe Indue introduced this role as a way of continuing to meet our customer’s needs by bringing the wider community together to leverage knowledge and drive opportunity.

HOW HAS YOUR BACKGROUND PREPARED YOU FOR THIS ROLE?

I have worked across a variety of industries in my career, including financial services. That means I am coming to this role with an established understanding of the breadth and scale of the challenges that a lot of our customers face. From customer experience and operations to strategic portfolio delivery, I understand the banking lifecycle. I think my deep customer knowledge will set the tone for what I do in the innovation space at Indue. The customer always has and always will be at the core of our work.

WHAT IS YOUR VISION FOR THE ROLE?

As I mentioned, there is huge disruption and opportunity in our industry. My vision for the role is that we provide insights and guidance on evolving opportunities, driving a purposeful, customer-centric roadmap of innovative change through collaboration with our community.

SPEAKING OF OPPORTUNITY, WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE IS THE MOST NOTEABLE POSSIBILITY FOR INNOVATION IN THE PAYMENTS, FINANCIAL SERVICES, AND BANKING SECTOR?

There has been, and continues to be, a strong emphasis on digitisation and operational efficiencies. People these days are time poor and generally more impatient, meaning we have the opportunity to streamline and improve customer experiences.

CONVERSLEY, WHAT DO YOU THINK THE MOST SIGNIFICANT CHALLENGES TO INNOVATION IN THIS SECTOR ARE?

For the financial services and payments sector particularly, I think we’re seeing a significant change of pace and increasing cost of doing business. Customers are more informed now, demanding a different proposition. Data and security are front of mind, posing the difficulty of digitising services while keeping them exceptionally safe. At the same time, services need to remain easy to understand and adopt, as well as cost-efficient. It’s all a balancing act. 

WHAT ARE THE THREE MAIN AREAS YOU INTEND TO FOCUS ON IN THIS ROLE OVER THE NEXT 12 MONTHS?

I think my focus areas can be summarised as three questions:

1. What is the market doing?
2. What are our customers trying to achieve?
3. What opportunities exist to help them succeed?

Essentially, I hope to provide market insights and thought leadership at an aggregate level, understanding our customers challenges and delivering on the opportunities out there.

HOW DO YOU FORSEE INNOVATION ALIGING WITH AND CONTRIBUTING TO POSITVE SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS AT INDUE?

Change is inevitable, we just need to ensure it’s for the good of our people and our planet. Innovation and disruption are therefore required. I see Indue’s work aligning with that – we’re very conscious of and committed to ESG. We serve our diverse customers and communities through a variety of sustainable and social innovations, for example through our environmentally friendly bank cards and our accessibility offerings for visually impaired end-users.

WHERE DO YOU HOPE TO SEE INDUE IN 5 YEARS TIME?

There is so much knowledge and passion across us and our customers that the future is extremely exciting. We’re keen to grow and consolidate loyal partnerships with our customers, cultivating a highly connected community who maximise and optimise, together. Through our focus on and commitment to our customer’s purpose, I hope we continue to prove ourselves as the provider of choice.

DESCRIBE WHAT INNOVATION MEANS TO YOU.

The age-old question… innovation means different things to different people! For me, it’s about bringing renewed focus to optimise strategies. That might be through small incremental changes or more disruptive means, but either way it will deliver value in a customer-centric and sustainable way.

View the Indue Announcement

For 135 years, The Mutual Bank has met the financial needs of the Maitland, Newcastle, and Hunter communities in New South Wales, serving and supporting them in building a sustainable future.

Since March 2022, Indue has provided The Mutual Bank and its members with a significantly expanded payment services suite, including Direct Entry, BPAY, NPP, Financial Crimes, Anti-money laundering, Card Services, High Value Payments, and an expansion of its Digital Payments offering.

The Mutual Bank CEO Geoff Seccombe said the partnership continues to be driven by a strong alignment in company values, product offerings, and payment needs.

“Our relationship with Indue began when we needed assistance in becoming the first local mutual bank issuer of Apple Pay in the region. But it is founded upon much more than a vested interest in innovative payments technology,” Mr Seccombe said.

“Indue earned our trust, respect, and business by delivering on its payment services promise, and it has kept it by continuing to share our community-first focus and partnership culture.

“I commend Indue for its support of the local communities in which we operate, and its unwavering commitment to environmental, social, and cultural initiatives,” Mr Seccombe said.

Indue CEO Derek Weatherley said that alignment with our clients’ sustainability practices, community programs, and employee wellbeing are core to our values.

“The best partnerships are achieved when company culture and core values align, which is what we have experienced with The Mutual Bank,” Mr Weatherley said.

“We have an excellent understanding of The Mutual Bank’s priorities and their wider community goals in operating in a socially responsible manner, prioritising positive social impact and a genuine ‘one team’ support model with on-the-ground support.

“We look forward to continuing to work with The Mutual Bank and its community” Mr Weatherley said.

Tasmania’s Bank of us and its customers are reaping the significant fraud protection benefits of Indue’s Orion Financial Crimes Service, delivered as part of our exclusive full-service payments partnership.

As an agile solution that enables safer payments, ‘Orion’ offers real time, non-stop fraud detection, monitoring, and management through integrated AI machine learning.

Bank of us CEO, Paul Ranson said outsourcing payment services to Indue, including financial crime solutions and the provision of aggregated insights, predictability, and forewarning, has been of major benefit to the customer-owned bank.

“With Orion, more fraud cases are being detected and deterred before they hit accounts, drastically reducing our volume of disputes while simultaneously increasing our customer satisfaction and security,” Mr Ranson said.

“On the rare occasion fraud has transpired in the last 3 months since transitioning to a full-service partnership, Indue’s service has been incredible at enabling chargebacks to occur promptly, putting money back in our customers wallets faster.

“The necessity and truly incredible value of this service for Bank of us was illustrated when, on the first day of Orion’s operation at our bank, it saved just one of our customers $25,000.”

Indue CEO Derek Weatherley said the Orion service demonstrates industry-leading performance in financial crimes prevention, effectively reducing the burden on the non-major banks that we protect and serve, such as Bank of us.

“With more than 2.4 million accounts under management, Orion has access to a large pool of transactional data to detect trends, with rules tailored to meet the needs of individual organisations like Bank of us,” Mr Weatherley said.

“Our Australian-based team of fraud analysts do the heavy lifting, freeing up Bank of us to do the things they’re good at, like great banking products and services to Tasmanians, with enhanced peace of mind, knowing we’ve got them covered.
“For both Indue and Bank of us, who prioritise and care for customers, the reliable payments protection Orion provides is all that much more important.”

Beyond Orion, Indue’s range of services include the New Payments Platform, prepaid and gift card programs, mobile payments, the Nucleus Card Platform, and Payment and Bureau Services.

As it targets August migration deadline.

Bank of us, a Tasmanian customer-owned institution, has signed Indue to upgrade its fraud monitoring, as it works through a broader payment migration project set for completion this August.

Bank of us has a retail presence in Tasmania and 33,000 customers.

The bank stated earlier this year it had invested in an upgrade to its fraud monitoring service, aimed at building greater protection for customer funds.

CEO Paul Ranson told iTnews the bank appointed Indue “as our exclusive full-service payments partner, which has included the adoption of Indue’s Orion financial crimes service.”

“The Orion financial crimes service monitors all card transactions in real-time, allowing for most fraudulent transactions to be detected and blocked before they hit our customer accounts,” Ranson said.

“The service will continue to be expanded to cover all other payment types from May,” he said, adding the financial crimes service is powered IBM’s safer payments platform.

He said since the upgrades, the bank has noted “a significant reduction in the number of fraudulent transactions affecting our customer accounts.”

Implementation of the financial crimes feature is part of a bigger project, kicked off last October, to migrate payment and settlement services over to Indue.

The project is expected to be completed by August 2023 and give customers access to more sophisticated end-to-end payment solutions.

Source: IT News, Apr 14, 2023:

12th April 2023

Current regulation is not fit for purpose due to the technological advancements and consumer behaviours which have led to emerging entrants disrupting the payments sector. To keep pace, promote smooth economic operations, and protect Australia’s position as a leader in the global marketplace, the Australian Government has set the regulatory wheels in motion.

In December 2022, Treasury released a consultation paper seeking input into the ‘Strategic Plan for the Payments System’. The purpose of this paper is to pursue feedback into the Plan for the payments system to ensure that Australians can continue to transact in a safe, secure, and efficient environment.

The Plan will be a comprehensive, long-term strategy that provides clarity on the Government’s policy objectives and priorities for the payments system. It will support a shared vision for the payments system and facilitate coordinated decision-making between the government, regulators, industry, and consumer and business representatives.

At Indue, we align with the sentiment and suggestions put forward by the Australian Payments Network CEO Andy White in his recent commentary. The Plan’s objective is commendable and necessary, however, its effectiveness is contingent upon strategic and impactful execution.

Mr White advised that Treasury’s priority for 2023 should be “ensuring the regulatory framework is fit-for-purpose and promotes competition” by progressing leadership, regulation, and licensing.

It is through this fit-for-purpose and fit-for-future framework that the industry will find clarity around how to compliantly operate more efficient, innovative, accessible, and trustworthy modern payments systems.

We eagerly await the release of the inaugural Plan as an opportunity to enhance the leading payments solutions we provide to mutuals, banks, corporates, governments, payment providers and other non-bank financial institutions.

21st March, 2023

Indue is excited to welcome in the next era of high value payments processing, as the industry reached a significant milestone this week with a major multi-year upgrade to ISO20022 messaging standards, to future-proof the payments system and enable domestic and international payment system interoperability and data-rich messaging.

In conjunction with the rollout of this major industry upgrade, Indue has enhanced its high value payment processing technologies to maximise the operational efficiencies and security posture of the system.

Indue Chief Executive Officer Derek Weatherley said these new messaging standards will bring many benefits for customers and their operational staff, such as improved financial crime monitoring, rich data and international harmonisation via the SWIFT network.

“We have kept clients front of mind while redeveloping our high-value payment processing capabilities to ensure they capitalise on the value of the technology,” Mr Weatherley said.

“Among many benefits, our clients will have access to streamlined end-to-end processing and full self-service capabilities through the online portal that enables real-time transaction tracking, approval and auditing.

“The upgrades also support API messaging for updates, notifications and other functions, automated approval processes, significantly lowering operating costs and risks, as well as modernising the overall security posture, including multi factor authentication.

“Our processing capabilities align with the ISO20022 upgrades to ensure our clients can enjoy greater operational efficiencies, and we look forward to driving faster payment experiences with the roll-out of these technologies.”

The upgrade was launched with Auswide Bank in March 2023, with an iterative roll-out across our full client base underway.

21st March, 2023

Following the successful launch of a New Payments Platform (NPP) for Auswide Bank in 2022, Indue and Auswide have been busy behind the scenes to successfully implement Direct Entry, BPAY, Cards as well as Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and High Value payment capabilities.

Throughout the past year, Indue has enabled digital transformation, state-of-the-art customer experiences, and improved business outcomes for Auswide Bank, enabling them to best help achieve their goals of helping Australians achieve home ownership, create wealth, and access banking and financial services.

Auswide Bank Managing Director and CEO Martin Barrett said that Indue’s similar commitment to prioritising customers has assisted in delivering outstanding services to Auswide Bank communities and customers across the country.

“Indue’s full suite of end-to-end payment solutions are a key component of transforming our business with technology and providing digital payment choices for our customers, improving their experience and delivering stronger business outcomes,” Mr Barrett said.

“Efficiencies that have flowed through our operations as a direct result of Indue’s integrated service stack have exceeded all expectations – it is fantastic to have a partner with modern technology that does the heavy lifting for us”.

Indue CEO Derek Weatherley said “I am very pleased that this transition has closed so quickly and cleanly and my team remains energised to support Auswide Bank in bringing these services to their customers.”

“Since Indue’s appointment as Auswide Bank’s exclusive full-service payments partner earlier, we have expedited the implementation of NPP, Direct Entry, BPAY, Cards, AML and High Value payments” Mr Weatherley said.

“As a founding member of the NPP, our partnership with Auswide Bank enables the organisation and their customers to securely send and receive payments with other financial institutions in near real-time.

“Complementary to this, Direct Entry and BPAY provide cost-effective, convenient ways for customers to transfer funds between bank accounts and pay bills. The Indue and Auswide Bank relationship has been further enhanced by simple and adaptable payment card and mobile payment services, including switching and settlement, which provide maximum flexibility for Auswide Bank and their customers.

“The efficient and seamless implementation of these offerings demonstrates Indue’s industry-leading knowledge and ability to deliver cutting-edge integrated solutions to our customers.

“We are proud of the significant operational efficiencies that Indue’s integrated payment systems provide to Auswide Bank freeing staff up to focus on serving their customers and community.  We very much look forward to continuing our successful partnership.”

We are delighted to confirm that Qudos Bank has reappointed Indue as their exclusive full-service payments partner.

Qudos Bank is one of Australia’s largest customer-owned banks with branches in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane and more than $5 billion in assets, offering a full range of financial products and services, including home loans, personal loans, transaction, and savings accounts, super and investing, and insurance.

Over recent years Qudos Bank has been on a digital transformation journey and provides a host of exceptional digital banking platforms and payments services.  Qudos Bank CEO Michael Anastasi said the relationship renewal reaffirmed the strength and value of the long-term partnership with Indue to provide end-to-end payment services.

“We have a long term partnership with Indue and renewing the relationship supports continuing development in our innovation around digital banking offering and providing a state-of-the-art payment services experience for our customers, underpinned by market leading security in payments for our customers” Mr Anastasi said.

“Importantly, Indue’s customer-focussed culture is outstanding across the organisation and directly aligns to our central focus as a customer-owned bank on delivering banking services in the interests of our customers, providing synergies that will help Qudos remain at the forefront of excellent in customer service standards for our customers across Australia.”

Indue CEO Derek Weatherley said the renewal of the partnership will enable Qudos Bank to provide to their customers a comprehensive suite of end-to-end payment services coupled with market leading payment security.  Qudos has been remarkably successful through a laser focus on customer advocacy and being easy to do business with – the partnership with Indue ensures that excellence in customer outcomes remains at the forefront of their business operations.

“Indue remains heavily invested in advancements in our product technology capability, reinvesting our profits into research and development via our Innovation Hub and the various working groups it supports and continuing to support the digital transition of our clients,” Mr Weatherley said.

“We couldn’t be more pleased Qudos Bank has chosen to extend our long-term partnership and we are looking forward to working together to build out future innovation pathways for real time, data rich, frictionless payment choices for customers.  Qudos has been a great supporter of their community and we look forward to working closely with Qudos this year on supporting and driving community focused outcomes important to their organisation. 

“The payment products and services suite provided to Qudos Bank by Indue will include NPP, PayID & Pay To, mobile payments, Orion Financial Crimes, Cards, Direct Entry, and BPAY services.”

-ENDS- 

The NPP October 2022 Roadmap has been published.

An update on the NPP roadmap is now available providing the latest numbers relating to the growing use of the NPP. There are now close to 89 million accounts able to make or receive NPP payments and the platform now processes more than 100 million transactions a month. One in three of all account-to-account credit transfers are occurring via the NPP. There are close to 13 million registered PayIDs, a 44 per cent increase since the same time last year with 315,000 new PayID registrations on average being added every month. Usage of PayID is growing with research conducted by NPP Australia revealing that 47% of users using PayID at least weekly.

Read the latest Roadmap here.

Blockchain and
crypto have made a surprising resurgence to the agenda at Money 20/20, likely
driven by the growth in central bank currency pilots and collaborations into potential
use cases for government issued digital currency. The Indue client tour
participants absorbed broad learnings on how the concept of a fully digital
decentralised network could benefit customers and clients in the payments and
banking sectors.

A wide spread of
blockchain use cases were presented, everything from connected cars through to
micro payments, with the major feature being the ability to move money in
real-time at lower cost, a presumption that we see either prove or disprove
itself in the years to come.

The focus on the
use of crypto in payments has been heavily on enabling cross-border
transactions, as well as the challenges posed by increasing regulation.

The bold headline
from proponents of the technology at Money 20/20 was that everything will be on
blockchain – it’s only a matter of time.

This optimism
comes with words of warning. These technologies continue to be developed
through a cycle of uncertainty and regulation remains a major challenge. With
improved regulation we will likely see a more stable and genuine value emerge
for crypto and the development of more businesses with underlying strength.

With these
expansive developments in the fintech space, Indue continues to stay tuned to
these innovations to provide our clients and their customers with strategic
guidance and forethought on the payments landscape of the future.

The Money20/20 conference has given us the opportunity to hear from a wide range of world-class speakers, including global entrepreneurs and even a Grand Slam tennis champion, who have all touched on the intrinsic link between organisational culture, diversity, and performance.

The companies that are best positioned to establish a competitive edge are the ones that embrace a culture of prioritising diversity of people and thought, and equally, this diversity is the best form of due diligence when developing new business models or entering new markets.

In a broad ranging discussion about fintech and start-ups featuring Serena Williams, we heard about new business models and solutions that are focused on solving problems for customers, leveraging the power of partnerships, and driving a competitive edge through organisational culture embracing diversity.

We were also fortunate to hear from several women who have founded new payment fintech companies in the past two years, including Kontempo – a Mexico-based bank focused on providing credit to small businesses, Lucy – which is providing funding for female entrepreneurs, and the competitive edge through embracing diversity was a recurring theme.

The theme of modernising core was prevalent, ensuring foundations are built on future proofed architecture. Another common theme in this vein was ‘build core, partner everything else’. This includes leveraging partnerships for insightful and innovative product design, and the theme of diversity featured again through partnerships that support organisational diversity, with a US Bank focussing a commitment to diversity though partnering with fintechs who are focused on minority/women only businesses.

Download your copy of the Annual Report 2022 today.

MEDIA RELEASE
8th November 2021

LEADING payments and technology services company Indue Limited has announced Fred Perry as Chief Commercial Officer effective January 2022.
Mr Perry is set to drive the company’s commercial business with a focus on accelerating growth, product optimisation and driving competitive advantage for our clients in all their payments needs. 

Indue Chief Executive, Derek Weatherley, said he was excited for Indue’s future under the commercial leadership of Mr Perry.

“We are thrilled to appoint Mr Perry as Chief Commercial Officer and are confident the business will thrive under his leadership given his past performance in driving significant change for organisations and his solid background in delivering results for the financial sector,” Mr Weatherley said.

Mr Perry has 24 years’ experience optimising client value in industries including business and wholesale banking, financial services and venture capital. He joins Indue from RACQ where he held the role of General Manager of Strategic Delivery and Enablement, leading the Transformation Office, and the role of RACQ Bank Chief Operations Officer where he built and fostered an environment of collaborative relationships, innovation, integrity and dedication to excellence.
Prior to this Mr Perry worked in senior roles with ME Bank, Angus Polar, Centrepoint Alliance Ltd and spent more than 11 years at National Australia Bank in the roles of Head of Sales Growth and
Optimisation, Head of Transformation and Head of Analytics.

He holds a Master of Business Administration from University of Newcastle, a Post Graduate Diploma of Finance and a Diploma of Marketing Management.

Fighting financial crime with award-winning technology

Orion Financial Crimes – Case Study

The growing sophistication of financial crime remains an ever-present threat, particularly as we move to a predominantly cashless society, and engage with more ways to pay. Left exposed or unprotected, fraudsters can swiftly take their toll on financial institutions’ bottom line and reputations.

To stay on top of innovative financial crime perpetrators, financial institutions must have the best people, processes and technology in place to efficiently detect and monitor fraudulent behaviour. This valuable mix can sometimes take years to develop without the support of specialist providers.

Financial institutions are often faced with having to run multiple, costly technology solutions that tackle independent payment channels. This can lead to siloed people and processes supporting these multiple solutions. Managing multiple solutions also runs the risk of delaying the detection of fraud and potentially missing a fraud event entirely, exposing vulnerabilities for fraudsters to exploit.

These were just some of the challenges Indue’s client — a well-known Australian bank — faced while attempting to protect its 400,000-plus customer base prior to engaging Indue’s financial crimes experts.

Results we achieved for a leading Australian bank

• 50% cut in fraud losses in the first month

• 60% reduction in false-positive fraud results

• 400,000-plus customers better protected

Challenges

As a leading Australian bank, reliable fraud monitoring was essential to keep up with the fast, real-time transaction speeds of today’s payments networks. The bank was fighting fraudsters without the ability to decline in-flight transactions in real time, the outcome was fraudsters had the opportunity to achieve far greater attacks utilizing velocity and speed to their advantage.

The bank’s incumbent technology was also returning significant false-positive fraud results, thereby clouding analyst assessments and creating cost inefficiencies for operations. This enabled real fraud to hide behind genuine behaviour, which was often missed during assessments.

Critically, fraud was being monitored only during office hours by the client’s operations team. This often resulted in a backlog of events for next day review, while providing an opportunity for perpetrators to schedule attacks during out of hours and unmonitored periods.

How Indue helped: 5 key priorities

Shared vision: Indue’s financial crimes experts were able to see the bigger picture and work in partnership with the bank on their longer-term business planning goals and objectives, to provide a solution that could grow and adapt over time.

Partnership: The client was seeking a supplier who would take a true partnership approach. A partner who could work with them to co-create an integrated solution that could simplify the management of multiple payment channels and return better results than its existing provider.

Collaboration: A key success factor was the focus on collaboration between the client and Indue. The teams worked closely to ensure each other’s strengths were being leveraged, that the client was listened to and understood, that there was clarity on the problems that needed solving, and that there was alignment on identifying technical challenges and key performance outcomes.

Understanding: Built on years of experience, the Indue team understands that the closer you can work with a client’s team, the better the outcome. It was through establishing a close working relationship Indue was able to provide direction & guidance to help them decide how they wanted and needed to interact with the service. As the client was reshaping their own fraud management approach, Indue was able to provide guidance and counsel.

Feature Rich Service: The bank required a 24×7 alert triage service thereby providing round the clock monitoring and protection for their 400k+ customer base.  Powered by award-winning IBM Safer Payments, the Indue solution was able to reduce the risks associated with the client’s multiple payment channels. Further, Indue’s investigation Case Management tool made an outsourced service much easier to manage back in the clients own shop. Finally, the Indue aggregation model was able to deliver insights from across a broad range of industry financial crime learnings, providing the client with greater visibility of the financial crime landscape.

“Financial crime is a unique, fast-paced and often highly complicated problem to solve. It requires people, process and technology working together harmoniously to achieve results.”

Dean Wyatt, Head of Financial Crimes, Indue

Results, return, future plans

Following the implementation of Orion Financial Crimes Solution, the bank saw immediate results with card fraud losses cut by 50% in the first month alone. More fraud was detected through less alerts and false-positives reduced by 60%.

Better outcomes overall were achieved in prevention and detection by addressing both fraud and scams, and significantly reducing chargebacks to customers.

The bank is now looking to add further payment channels to Indue’s solution, taking full advantage of the single-view capability of Orion Financial Crimes and IBM Safer Payments.

Critically, the bank can now focus its attention on higher value programs to drive its customer-first value proposition while working with Indue to protect its customers.

Orion Financial Crimes

Orion Financial Crime’s ability to inherently integrate people, processes and technology provides a cutting-edge solution with real-time capability, integrating artificial intelligence and machine learning to deliver a 24/7 fraud monitoring solution.

Launched in 2003, Orion Financial Crimes went live with IBM Safer Payments in 2018, providing real-time fraud & scam detection and management, anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing monitoring, sanctions checking across Australia and New Zealand.

To find out how you can tap in to Indue’s team of experts & specialists in fraud management contact us today.

Download a copy of our Case Study

Vinnies CEO Sleepout 2018

The Indue team are once again participating in the CEO Sleepout this year on Thursday 21 June. Team Indue have decided to sleep on the streets for one night to experience what over 105,000 people experience every night.

Help fight homelessness by donating today and help us reach our goal of raising $15,000 in the Vinnies CEO sleepout 2018. This money will go towards crisis accommodation options for families and individuals at risk of homelessness, food vouchers for people who would otherwise go without food, and personal care packages containing everyday essentials.

More than 116,000 Australians experience homelessness every night, and 32 per cent are children. 

Thank you for your support. Please visit our fundraising page to donate today.