RBA Payments System Board Meeting

The Payments System Board is the statutory payments policy board of the RBA, Australia's central bank, created in 1998 under the Reserve Bank Act 1959. It sets payments system policy for Australia.

It oversees the Bank's powers under the Payment Systems Regulation Act 1998 and the Payment Systems and Netting Act 1998. Those powers also come from Parts 7.3 and 7.3B of the Corporations Act 2001.

The Board has up to 8 members. The Governor serves as Chair, a Bank representative as Deputy Chair, and an APRA representative sits alongside up to five members appointed by the Treasurer.

It oversees RITS, the real-time settlement system, and NPP, the New Payments Platform. It also covers retail card rules, ASX clearing and settlement facilities, cash, cheques and digital money research. It makes no cash-rate decision.

The Board meets once per quarter, and the RBA publishes a media release in the afternoon after each meeting. Each release summarizes issues discussed that day and foreshadows forthcoming RBA documents, while major decisions gain separate media releases with related information links.

The Chair can convene a meeting at any time. The Board can decide in writing with majority approval without meeting, under section 25H of the Reserve Bank Act. Each summary is final with no stated revision rule, and the Board reports to the Minister soon after 30 June each year.

Five recurring agenda domains drive each meeting update.

• Financial market infrastructure oversight: assessments of RITS and ASX clearing and settlement facilities for systemic risk control, including CHESS replacement supervision.
• Retail payments regulation: reviews of merchant card costs, surcharging, tokenisation and least-cost routing (LCR), which lets merchants choose their debit network.
• System transitions: oversight of prominent systems such as NPP, Visa, Mastercard, eftpos and BECS, the bulk transfer system. It also tracks moves off cheques and ageing rails, including PayTo.
• Future money research: follow-ups on CBDC pilot work and tokenised asset settlement models, including Project Acacia. A joint roadmap with Treasury continues, with no live policy.
• User protection and access: anti-scam measures such as confirmation of payee, payment blocks, delays and limits, plus work on cash distribution durability.

The 15 August 2024 update shows the Board's expectations-plus-follow-up method through least-cost routing data. It reported that 70% of large providers' merchant customers had routing enabled in person, but only 6 of 12 providers offered it fully online.

The Board backed merchants' choice of debit network. It set expectations to keep enabling in-person routing, pass savings to merchants and accelerate online coverage including gateways. It sought routing for mobile-wallet transactions by the end of 2024.

It flagged that the retail payments review would examine effectiveness and possible further intervention. The same update commenced consultation on merchant card payment costs and surcharging. The May 2024 update reiterated the token-portability expectation for the end of June 2025.

1. Meeting votes: a motion passes by majority of members present and voting, excluding abstentions. The presiding member holds a deliberative vote and, if votes are equal, a casting vote. For example, with 7 of 8 seats filled, a 3-to-3 split with 1 abstention passes 4 to 3 on the chair's casting vote.
2. Out-of-meeting decisions: a resolution passes without meeting when a majority of members approve in writing. Approval includes electronic means, under section 25H of the Reserve Bank Act.
3. Communication: the outcome appears in the afternoon media release that summarizes issues discussed that day.
4. Quorum: 5 members must be present, so 4 present cannot decide.