Sibos 24: the forgotten transition

The digital transition underway in the payments space is just as transformational as some of the other significant shifts happening around the world - and one businesses must ensure they are equipped for, according to ANZ’s Managing Director of Transaction Banking, Lisa Vasic.

Speaking to the ANZ Institutional On Air podcast, ahead of the Sibos financial services conference in October, Vasic compared the scope of the digital transition to the one happening in energy.

“Our customers are managing some significant transitions at the moment,” she said. “The one that probably gets less airtime, but is no less profound, is the digital transition.”

For businesses dealing with that transition, Vasic said, it was critical they assessed if they had “the right infrastructure to be able to effectively participate in an economy that is becoming much more digitised?’”.

A lot is said about the shift to real-time payments (RTP), but the transition goes beyond that “component piece”, according to Vasic.

“The overarching umbrella for a lot of [ANZ’s] customers here is, ‘how do I help transition my treasury into a real-time treasury?’,” she said.

“Now, that doesn't always mean that I need to pay real time, but often what it does mean is I need to receive real time, and I need to see… information in real time.”

Vasic spoke on podcast with Jenny Hutchings, ANZ’s Head of Banks and Diversified Financials, and Anuj Mehra, Director of, Strategic Sales & Platforms. You can listen to an edited version of the conversation – part one of two parts – below.

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Main car

Mehra told the podcast the shift to digital was now impossible for businesses to ignore.

“Every customer I speak to wants the superior payment experience,” he said. “Digital is no longer a side car. It is the main car for everyone.

“When I speak to them, they tell me that they want to be the number one provider of services digitally. Every single one of them.”

Key to taking advantage of the shift is “creating better customer experiences”, Mehra said, as the modern consumer wants “services to be delivered in real time”.

“They don't want to wait,” he said.

In many ways, Australia has been at the front of the global pack when it comes to adoption of RTP, Vasic said, which has given the local market a “very solid foundation for the real time payments infrastructure”.

“But clearly we're seeing a lot come from offshore as well,” she said.

Australia’s links to offshore RTP networks were brought into focus in July, when ANZ became the first major bank to receive a cross-border payment in near real-time, through the use of the NPP’s international payments service.

Hutchings described use of the services as a “game changer” for the sector; the last leg in “the foundational build up that we've had in terms of the cross-border piece”.

Similarly transformative is Australia’s PayTo service, according Vasic, which helps “support customer experiences and give them choice”. 

ANZ became the first major bank to go live with PayTo service for billers in December, helping complete a successful transaction for the Australian Bond Exchange.

Mehra said PayTo was “the way our customers will pay us” in the future. “It's a matter of time,” he said.

“We certainly see the demand from almost all of our billers wanting to dip their toes, as I like to call it, into [the] NPP and real-time payments and start their adoption journey.”

Vasic told the podcast that PayTo was an evolution for a system that had previously benefitted institutions primarily, by offering consumers greater “visibility, choice [and] control”.

“We think this is going to be really important in the business-to-business space as well, which is a segment that's probably been underbanked in terms of the benefits of broader, real-time payments,” she said.

This article reflects the edited version of the conversation as it appears on the podcast.

This is part one of a two-part podcast. Keep an eye on ANZ Institutional Insights ahead of Sibos for part two.