Australia says industry not ready to decommission BECS

The industry does not have a shared vision or transition plan yet.

Australia’s payments industry has yet to give a shared vision of what features its wants for account-to-account payments in Australia, its central bank stated.

There has been’ “insufficient industry coordination, planning and certainty regarding the transition” to the decommissioning of the Bulk Electronic Clearing System (BECS), the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) wrote in a review published on 11 March 2025.

BECS is Australia’s current system for A2A payments, and has been in operation for 30 years.

The industry has proposed decommissioning it in 2023 and shifting to alternative payment rails, with June 2030 as the conditional target date.

RBA recommends that the industry define a vision for the target future state and strategic objectives for A2A payments in Australia.

The industry should also “comprehensively consider alternative options for achieving that target future state,” it added.

Once a target future state is agreed, the industry can then establish a transition plan.

“These recommendations are steps that the RBA expects industry to address with priority and urgency,” the RBA said.