Australia’s payments landscape is amidst a period of structural change, and business leaders are facing a decision that is becoming harder to defer.

According to a new report from Azupay, Real-time payments: Is waiting still a strategy?, the next 12 to 24 months may represent the final opportunity for organisations to build real-time payment capability on their own terms, before industry transitions, regulatory expectations, and operational pressures accelerate.

Prepared by Azupay and drawing on publicly available data from the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), Australian Payments Plus (AP+), Australian Payments Network (AusPayNet), the Australian Treasury, and Azupay’s experience working with enterprise and government customers, the report examines how Australia’s payments infrastructure is evolving and what that means for decision-makers.

At the centre of the transition is the New Payments Platform (NPP), Australia’s real-time account-to-account payments network.

“Real-time account-to-account payments, delivered through the New Payments Platform (NPP), are now part of core payments infrastructure,” said Andrew Baines, CEO at Azupay.

In the 12 months to October 2025, the NPP processed some 1.82 billion real-time transactions, representing almost 14 per cent year-on-year growth. The platform now carries more than one-third of Australia’s account-to-account payment volume, with almost $7 billion moving through it every day.

For Baines, the significance extends beyond transaction numbers.

“For business leaders in enterprise, government and regulated industries, the priority is when and how to engage, and how to do so in a controlled, low-risk way. Answering the question of whether waiting is still reducing risk or beginning to increase it,” he said.

“Capability, confidence, and operational readiness compound over time. Transition risk does too. The next 12 to 24 months represent a critical window to build capability deliberately, before change becomes more externally driven and less forgiving.”

Why boards are paying attention

Baines said real-time payments have become a governance issue for three key reasons: Infrastructure maturity, the transition of legacy payment systems, and growing fraud and verification expectations.

“The NPP is no longer assessed as emerging technology,” Baines said. “It is governed, overseen, and treated as part of Australia’s critical payments architecture.”

The report notes that the RBA’s Payment System Board has designated the NPP as a prominent payment system alongside eftpos, Mastercard and Visa, reflecting its growing importance to the financial system.

At the same time, Australia’s legacy payment rails are entering a period of transition. The Bulk Electronic Clearing System (BECS), which facilitated approximately 3.5 billion payments worth $17.4 trillion in 2024, remains central to the economy.

The RBA has identified BECS as a critical system under increasing pressure to evolve, with industry now actively exploring its future through modernisation or alternative account-to-account solutions.

While an earlier 2030 target date has been removed, the shift is now being guided by industry readiness, resilience and risk reduction rather than a fixed deadline.

Baines said assumptions around legacy cost structures are increasingly being challenged. “Whether BECS is modernised or new alternatives take a greater share over time, cost, resilience requirements and operational expectations are shifting from today’s baseline.” 

Risk is becoming a bigger consideration

The report argues that fraud and cybersecurity concerns are increasingly influencing payment strategies.

AusPayNet data shows card-related fraud reached $854 million in FY25, while card-not-present fraud accounted for about 87 per cent of all card fraud. Separately, the Australian Bureau of Statistics reports that 10 per cent of Australians experienced card fraud during 2024-25.

“These are not abstract numbers,” Baines said. “They shape stakeholder behaviour.”

The report also points to Australia’s worsening cyber threat environment, with increasing scrutiny on operational resilience, verification capabilities and auditability. For organisations managing large payment volumes, these considerations are becoming part of broader risk management discussions rather than purely payments decisions.

Why adoption often starts with businesses, not consumers

One of the report’s key findings challenges a common assumption about payment innovation.

Australia’s pay-by-bank adoption is often compared with faster-moving overseas markets, but Tom Rundle, chief product officer at Azupay, argues that such comparisons overlook how real-world adoption typically unfolds.

“A persistent assumption in payments strategy is that new payment methods become mainstream when consumers explicitly ask for them at checkout,” he said. “That logic holds for some consumer-branded innovations, but it does not describe how pay-by-bank systems have scaled globally.”

Instead, the report finds that business, government and institutional use cases typically drive early transaction volumes because operational benefits such as settlement certainty, fraud reduction and improved data create a compelling business case.

Consumer familiarity follows exposure and experience rather than demand.

“The absence of consumer-led pull is not a signal of failure,” Rundle said. “It is characteristic of infrastructure-led payment systems.”

This is about preparedness, not speed

Importantly, the report does not advocate for rushed adoption. Rundle said the debate should not be framed around being first.

“The report does not argue for rushed adoption or wholesale migration,” he said. “It explains how real-time payment adoption is actually unfolding in Australia – through merchant-led design, targeted pilots, and deliberate scale-up – and provides a practical framework for deciding when to lead, when to stage, and when waiting remains rational.”

Instead, the report argues that organisations should focus on controlled learning in areas where real-time payments can address existing operational challenges, such as refunds, claims, disbursements and settlement processes.

Rundle said waiting can still be a valid decision in some circumstances, but it should never be mistaken for a neutral one.

“While organisations defer, fraud exposure persists, legacy rail dependence continues, and future transitions become more compressed and less forgiving,” he said.

“Passive delay is not a strategy. It is deferred risk – and the deferral compounds.”

The organisations likely to emerge strongest are not necessarily those that move first or move fastest.

According to Azupay, they are the ones who use the current window to build capability, test use cases, and develop organisational readiness before external pressures intensify.

The report states: “Delaying action defers learning into a future state that is likely to be more compressed, more externally driven, and less forgiving of mistakes. It also assumes that the current trade-off between legacy cost and modern capability will remain stable, though current industry direction suggests it will not.”

The report argues that the most effective path lies between rushing and deferring: acting selectively, piloting, carefully measuring outcomes, and building confidence before transition pressures peak.

“This is a bet on preparedness and not a bet on technology,” the report concludes.

As Australia’s payments ecosystem continues to evolve, Azupay believes leadership will be defined less by who moved first and more by who moved with purpose.

• To learn more, download Azupay’s report, Real-time payments: Is waiting still a strategy?, which includes a board decision framework and practical roadmap for assessing real-time payment readiness over the next 12 to 24 months.