Consumers globally are driving demand for real-time payments as the world moves toward a real-time economy. Businesses are already responding to this change by reassessing their own approach to payments.
In our view, 2026 will see a convergence of domestic real-time payments in Australia with cross-border payment capabilities, opening a whole new world – in many cases literally – for the payments space.
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Australia’s New Payments Platform enables near real-time payments to be sent 24 hours a day, seven days a week, effectively eliminating cutoff times. Consumers like this, have become accustomed to it, and are now demanding the same experience when it comes to cross-border payments.
The good news is industry in Australia established this cross-border capability in late 2024. And we believe 2026 will be the year the convergence between cross-border payments into the domestic rails in Australia takes hold, enabling payments to be sent into Australia near-real time.
In our view
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In terms of outward payments, at ANZ we're really excited about the proposition looking ahead. Globally, markets like the United Kingdom, India, Singapore are also connecting cross-border payments into their real time payments network. This helps provide consumers and businesses a number of faster, cheaper, transparent and secure payments options.
As more countries come on board, and consumers adopt usage, momentum behind the convergence of cross-border payments into real-time payment networks will only grow.
Sean Rowe is Head of Banks, FIG, Australia
