Developing a whole-of-government approach for Australia’s payments migration

As Australia shifts to a modern real-time payments system, the intended decommissioning of the longstanding Bulk Electronic Clearing System (BECS) and migration of these payments to the NPP (New Payments Platform) will be one of the most significant shifts in the national payments landscape in decades. For Federal and State governments that send and receive hundreds of millions of payments per year, successful migration depends on more than technical readiness. It requires a strong business case, careful consideration of customer and end user impacts and prioritising the use cases that will deliver the greatest value for citizens. 

Drawing on our deep government and payments expertise, a state Treasury engaged Baringa to support its whole-of-government discovery project to understand what it would take to migrate all of their BECS payments to the NPP. The analysis was to identify the costs, benefits, dependencies and define a migration approach founded on a strong fact base. 

Building a whole-of-government evidence base 

We led a comprehensive discovery project to understand current BECS payment journeys and usage across agencies and their readiness for modernisation from a technical, operational and industry perspective. Engaging with more than 20 agency and industry stakeholders, we analysed payment journeys, system dependencies and operational impacts. 

The discovery project built an understanding of the agency readiness as well as industry capability and planned developments to identify opportunities, dependencies and appropriate sequencing of use case migrations.

Drawing on the discovery findings, we developed a comprehensive cost–benefit model to quantify the investment required to migrate, the cost of running on the NPP, and the financial and non-financial benefits associated with the move to real time payments. This equipped Government with a robust evidence base  to inform a migration approach, understand key internal and external dependencies and quantify the scale of change. 

Providing a practical pathway to modernisation

The project equips the state with a robust, evidence-base to guide decision making as it progresses towards BECS migration. The key findings outline the path forward for government and its agencies, helping lay the groundwork for a smooth transition to modern payments infrastructure.  making

While many use cases can realise the benefits from moving to NPP today, the work also highlights external dependencies, particularly on banks and payment service providers, that must be resolved to enable broader adoption. This clarity positions government to actively support industry and play a leading role in shaping the future of payments.