The Australian Banking Association (ABA) is urging Parliament to swiftly pass legislation to modernise Australia’s payments regulatory framework, as digital payments continue to rise sharply.
Recent data from the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) reveals that Australians are now executing over 500 million transactions monthly using mobile wallets, totaling more than $20billion.
The proposed legislation would empower the RBA to regulate all key players within the payments ecosystem, including tech giants like Apple and Google. The goal is to ensure fairness and safety for all users across the board.
Anna Bligh, CEO of the ABA, commented: “Australia’s payment system has rapidly evolved. More and more of us are using our phones, our watches, to make payments. We’re paying for things online. Our payments regulatory framework needs to keep up with those changes, and right now, it’s 25 years old. Time to modernise it.”
Bligh also highlighted how when the current laws were made in 1998, cash and cheques were the dominant payment methods, internet shopping didn’t exist and mobile phones still had antennas.
““We are in a digitally dominant world now. Jurisdictions such as the EU have taken steps to recognise that mobile wallets are part of the payments system, and it’s time for Australia to do the same,” she also added. “Every month, Australians make more than half a billion payments on their mobile wallets. It’s time that these payments had the same safety protections around them for consumers as every other way of paying.”
The Treasury Laws Amendment (Miscellaneous Measures) Bill 2024 includes proposed reforms to the Payment Systems (Regulation) Act 1998.
