Payroll: the NPP’s next frontier

There’s work underway at ANZ on the next frontier for the New Payments Platform, one that will significantly assist with a task faced universally across business: payroll.

Leigh Mahoney, Head of Wholesale Digital at ANZ Institutional, says to “watch this space”.

Speaking to ANZ Institutional on a podcast with Rob Hilston, Head of GCIS at ANZ Institutional at ANZ, Mahoney said moving payroll services on to the NPP was the next evolution for the service in helping customers move on from decades of manual payment processing.

“We are working proactively on the ability to take a bulk file of payments and then transmit them out… in much the same way as a traditional payroll framework,” he said.

“I'm not quite sure of the actual delivery timeframe on that, but I know we're actively working on it and that will significantly help a lot of customers.”

You can hear an edited version of the conversation below.

According to Hilston, while the capability to settle bulk transactions on the NPP exists today, there is still a little more work to do before payroll on the NPP becomes reality.

“There's a few things, I think, that we still need to develop into the broader platform to allow a broader uptake of payroll payments,” he said.

There are data integrity considerations that must be addressed, Hilston said.

“For instance, you know, you may be able to see an individual payment in the system for ‘Rob’ and the amount that you paid them, which might not be what you want to do for your payroll,” he said.

What is likely before payroll is ironed out, according to Mahoney, are some additional overlay services.

“The next one coming along that is being spoken about right now is the Mandated Payment Service,” he said.

“It’s NPP’s approach to a new form of direct debit which I think will be really innovative and a number of organisations are working on it right now.”

Listen to the podcast above to find out more.