New Zealand Banks on Faster Payments with SIA
New Zealand’s central bank has awarded Italy-based SIA a contract to set up and support the financial institution’s real-time gross settlement system. The move represents the lastest development in the global effort to implement faster payment systems.
The system SIA is building for the Reserve Bank of New Zealand “electronically streamlines the settlements of large-value transactions between banks,” the two organizations said in a statement. The functions of the bank’s current exchange settlement account system will be incorporated into its replacement.
“Our preferred approach was to find and use an existing off-the-shelf system rather than build a new bespoke system. The contract with SIA achieves that goal,” said bank Deputy Governor Geoff Bascand.
As of last fall, 18 countries were live with real-time payments and 12 countries—including the U.S. and Canada—were researching, planning and building systems, while an additional 17 countries were exploring real-time payments through a pan-Eurozone initiative, according to financial messaging platform SWIFT. Australia selected SWIFT for its fast payments infrastructure last year.
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