Through a new cross-border payments collaboration between Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) and Bank of New York Mellon (BNY), Australian businesses and individuals receiving international payments from BNY customers can now receive their money in as little as 60 seconds1, regardless of which bank they are a customer of.
The new arrangement means that commercial BNY payments from overseas to businesses and individuals with Australian bank accounts will now be available to the end recipient in less than a minute, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
The collaboration leverages the International Payments Service (IPS) of Australia’s New Payments Platform (NPP2) and enables the last mile of BNY’s cross-border payments to Australia to be processed via CBA’s NPP, providing cost transparency, robust security and faster settlement.
Making and receiving cross-border payments can be challenging for customers due to costs and processing times. Inefficient payment processes can also hinder economic growth by hindering the flow of capital across borders.
“We are delighted to be working with BNY and leveraging the IPS initiative to increase the speed of cross-border payments to Australia. This initiative demonstrates our commitment to supporting our banking partners in meeting customer demand for instant and seamless cross-border payments,” said Ethan Teas, Executive General Manager Payments at CBA.
“This represents a significant leap forward in the evolution of global payments speed and enables CBA to empower our overseas banking partners to deliver great outcomes for their customers by supporting faster settlement of payments to accounts in Australia. Combined with CBA’s market-leading 24/7 AUD clearing, we are proud to offer our overseas partners the strongest end-to-end offering.
“The rollout of services similar to Australia’s IPS is expected to continue globally as demand for instant cross-border experiences increases. By working with CBA, BNY can tap into another market to achieve our goal of enabling instant, seamless account-to-account payments anywhere in the world,” said Carl Slabicki, Executive Platform Owner, Treasury Services at BNY.
The NPP was launched in Australia in 2018 to enable 24/7 real-time payments between participating financial institutions. In addition to improving the speed and efficiency of domestic transactions, the platform recently introduced instant interoperability through the IPS. This service enables the Australian dollar portion of incoming cross-border payments to be processed through the NPP, in line with the Financial Stability Board’s vision for a more interconnected global financial system.
CBA’s activation of IPS also enables flexibility in settling transactions up to mutually agreed payment value thresholds3 to support a secure and reliable transition to near real-time settlement while managing risk and liquidity.
“Demand for seamless and instant cross-border payments continues to grow and we are focused on leveraging advances in payments infrastructure, particularly the development of faster payment pathways, to provide our customers with fast, secure and seamless payment experiences,” said Mr Teas.
