Cuscal Limited, Author at Cuscal

5 lessons from Vegas on how to win in payments

Posted on November 24, 2015May 12, 2026 by Cuscal Limited

A few of my Cuscal colleagues, some of our financial institution clients and I have recently returned from a payments study tour to the USA. We started at Money 20/20 in Las Vegas (the world’s biggest fintech conference) where 10,000 delegates from 75 countries gathered to hear about the latest global trends in finance – 80 of them were from Australian companies. We then headed to Silicon Valley to chat with some global technology giants about the latest trends in payments and fintech, who were equally keen to hear from us about our early adopter digital and mobile market.

I’ve been back now for 3 weeks and it’s given me time to get the perspective necessary to strip away all of the glamour and bright lights and distil the main insights which are relevant to the Australian payments industry. My top 5 takeaways are:

1. Australia is a payments leader, but we need fintech companies to stay ahead.
While we think of the US as the home of technological innovation, Australia is arguably far ahead of the USA in several spheres. This is mainly due to Australia’s well-regulated banking environment, with far fewer financial institutions than the US, and a technologically-savvy population which quickly embraces new digital innovations. We have a long history of cooperation at industry level, aided by the big 4 major banks plus big 2 retailers, around rollout of new approaches like EMV (chip & pin) and NFC (contactless mobile payments) and also the presence of an active and interventionist regulator.
The combination of these factors has allowed us to collectively forge ahead, advancing the whole industry with new

70% take up of new payment forms like EMV and NFC
Sophisticated banking app functionality like self-service credit limits and PIN setting
Cross-industry plans underway to launch our faster payments system, the New Payments Platform (NPP) in 2017.

By contrast, the US has a highly contested payments industry with over 10,000 established banks. To counter this though, it also has a thriving, growing mass of thousands of well-funded fintech companies. This has caused a hotbed of innovative disruption in the USA that we monitor so we can use its best ideas to improve payments experiences back home.

2. The war of the wallet is upon us
‘The Pays’ (Apple Pay, Android Pay, Samsung Pay and PayPal) are all aggressively competing to be the dominant global payments wallet leader and Australia is next on their hit list. They are keen to come to Australia because:

It’s an early adopter market
With widespread smartphone usage in concentrated metropolitan areas
And a high percentage of merchants with the necessary infrastructure and skills to accept contactless payments

This makes us an ideal market for English-speaking technology companies to test their new products in 2016. Apple Pay has already arrived (albeit in a limited form as it can only be used on Amex issued cards, less than 10% of cards issued in Australia) and the others won’t be far behind.

The arrival of The Pays will be a major step towards the future of the ubiquitous mobile wallet and Australian financial institutions need to get ready (see what happened to Barclays in the UK when it lagged in accepting Apple Pay). Financial institutions need to weigh up whether to continue to invest in developing their existing mobile banking apps, integrate their apps with one or more of The Pays and/or associate themselves with leading merchants to drive volume commerce transactions, loyalty and gift programs.

Judging by the interest that some of Silicon Valley’s tech giants showed in us and our clients, next year is looking like a big year for mobile wallets in Australia.

3. Commerce within trusted social networks
“The magic is about making the transaction come together when people come together…” Deborah Liu, Facebook’s Head of Payments and Commerce @ 2015 Money 20/20

With 79% of Australians using the internet on a daily basis, and 93% of all social media users using Facebook, the average Facebook user spends an average of eight and a half hours a week on the site. These are staggering statistics and are creating tremendous (and growing) opportunities to drive B2B, B2C and P2P transaction volumes – especially now that most people’s initial reluctance to buy things on social media has passed.

Issuers and acquirers alike need to make sure they’re a part of this vast, sticky social media communities that consumers and small businesses are increasingly relying on to search, find, buy and sell products and services. If financial institutions are not connected to these platforms, they run the risk of being increasingly locked out of their customers’ lives as they spend more and more time, and more and more money inside the social media world.

4. Alternate lending will be game-changing
Australian financial institutions need to embrace the trend towards alternative lending business models and practices that are already transforming the USA, Australia and other markets. New types of lenders are currently the largest group of fintech Unicorns and Semi-Unicorns in the USA indicating that these well-funded global startups are likely to enter the Australian market in the not-to-distant future – joining companies that are already here like Thincats, RateSetter and Kabbage (in partnership with Kikka Capital). Companies that specialise in positive credit scoring, online marketplace lending, robo-advisory services that leverage credit data models are becoming serious alternatives to traditional banking services.

With $250 billion in consumer finance and small and medium business loans with Australian banks this is one that can’t be ignored.

5. Blockchain is going to get bigger and better
The increasing use of blockchain by financial institutions and governments is going to continue. Its use of a distributed ledger, system and record of transactions that any device, person or entity can connect to is incredibly useful and is likely to be able to operate autonomous marketplaces in the future. Its record of unit exchanges is also likely to be extended to support many other forms of value (eg telecommunication minutes, green credits) and data around ownership or sharing of assets (eg real estate, stocks). Although it’s relatively slow compared with a real-time payments system, its main benefit to businesses and consumers is that it is an inexpensive way to run transaction processing and record transaction data. As the Internet of Things (IoT) such as cars, wearables, connected homes and Amazon Dash Buttons utilise new technology instead of legacy systems, financial institutions will be able to use blockchain in many new ways yet to be imagined.

Because of the incredible pace of change of the global payments industry it’s a challenge for anyone to keep up. We’ve heard so much about the threat to financial institutions of fintech disruption that I expected to come back from the USA worried about how the exponential growth of innovative fintech companies could easily wash over and drown our payments ecosystem. Instead I’ve come back energised both by how well placed we are in Australia and also the massive opportunities that partnering with fintech companies can bring. The critical success factor for Australian payments-focused companies will be whether we band together to grow the overall payments pie or squabble to protect our own shrinking piece – what will your approach be?

Please let me know what you think about these opportunities and potential threats for Australia’s financial services industry below – especially if you were also at Money 20/20 and had a different take!

By Natalie Yan-Chatonsky, Innovation Manager, Payments

Digital disruption of mobile banking in Australia

Posted on November 12, 2015May 12, 2026 by Cuscal Limited

Within the span of just a few years, mobile technology has changed virtually every aspect of the world that we live in. That’s because the mobile devices that we now happily or dutifully carry around have evolved from basic communication tools into portals that we use to not only engage with others, but also manage countless aspects of our lives. Banking is no exception. Today’s consumers increasingly want to have all of their banking needs met from the palm of their hand. In fact, according to research from Roy Morgan the amount of Aussies that only use their mobile or tablet to do their banking has tripled in the last three years.

While that may seem like a narrow point at first glance, it actually underscores a much broader trend: these days customers strongly prefer using their mobile phones to do their banking over all other channels they have available to them. Meanwhile branches, ATMs, call centres and even internet banking are on the decline. A UBS Survey from August this year (“Is a bank in your pocket the next big thing?”) estimated that Australian banks can expect an 11 per cent reduction in branches as a result of mobile banking.

Consider, for example, that 80 percent of millennials would rather do their banking digitally than in person. For a generation that has grown up with smart phones and tablets, that typically means banking via mobile apps. Interestingly, according to one survey, 26 percent of respondents reported having switched banks just to get a better app.

What it means to bank in a mobile world
Recent research from RFi and Visa showed that digitally engaged customers (ones who engage with their bank via a mobile device) hold the most products with their MFI, are the most likely to approach their MFI if they want new products, and even have longer home loan tenures. Not surprisingly, that’s part of the reason why we’re seeing a spate of new advances in mobile banking technology, such as the introduction of:

Cardless cash from ATMs, which allows users to text message codes to each other, which can then be used to withdraw cash from nearby ATMs.
Mobile apps that include bill splitting functionality to make it easier for friends to share bills and request money owed. Apps like these divide group bills and then send texts to the relevant contacts in your phone, telling them how much they owe and providing a unique reference number. They also track payments so you can see whether or not you’ve been paid.
The ability to store loyalty cards on your mobile device and then simply scan it at the checkout, removing the frustration of not remembering (or being able to find) a different card for every store

Other recent innovations in Australia’s digital and mobile banking include the rise of biometrics and wearables. With the introduction of fingerprint technology, financial institutions are offering easier and more secure options for logging into their banking apps. Meanwhile the growth of smartwatches means that financial institutions are using wearable technology to give customers their financial information from their wrists.

With the arrival of the New Payments Platform, apps like these will give you the ability to do all of your banking in real time from your mobile, tablet or computer. If you can imagine being able to use your mobile to make secure payments to anyone in Australia in a matter of seconds, to apply for and open new accounts, and to set up limits and blocks on those accounts, then you’re beginning to get a sense for what will soon be possible.

Last but not least, many financial institutions are trying to perfect the omni-channel experience for their customers. That means they are using the data they already have about their customers to create seamless experiences no matter how, or on which channel, the customer interacts with them. While many banks are still enhancing the omni-channel experience, leading organisations are taking things a step further. The next evolution of better customer experiences will be the Internet of Everything, where transactions integrate seamlessly into consumers’ day-to-day lives. In that way, payments are not only virtually undetectable, but also add far greater value than the actual transaction itself.

To navigate the future you need the right partner
The evolution of digital and mobile banking in Australia is inevitable and is happening at break neck speed. For financial institutions that presents a number of challenges. For instance, developing new mobile applications is not only expensive, it’s also a potential money-trap. Today’s million-dollar investment could very well be obsolete in just a year’s time. The Commonwealth Bank’s executive general manager of digital channels, Lisa Frazier, said recently at the Agile Australia 2015 conference that its annual funding cycle couldn’t cope with their agile development needs. As a result, she had to institute monthly funding meetings combined with fortnightly risk and compliance catch-ups to get things moving quickly enough.

For most financial institutions that don’t have the scale of CBA, it’s important to find the right partner to help you navigate the challenges — one that’s building communities of interest that you can be a part of. When you do, you’ll not only benefit from economies of scale, but also wind up with a customised, agile solution that you can easily refine and enhance based on customer feedback. That means that getting to market becomes faster, easier, and cheaper, as well as more effective. In an age when the alternative is to lose your competitive advantage, it’s a compelling choice.

By Colin Sultana, Head of EFT, Acquiring & Digital

BPAY to offer NPP’s first overlay service

Posted on November 11, 2015May 12, 2026 by Cuscal Limited

As we race towards the launch of the NPP, the Industry Program has reached another significant milestone.

It’s exciting to hear that BPAY is creating the first overlay service, the Initial Convenience Service (ICS), for Australia’s New Payments Platform.

Due to launch in 2017, the NPP will facilitate faster, richer, more versatile payments in Australia, 24/7. Cuscal is one of the 12 original participants that are the architects of the NPP and will mutually own its infrastructure. While the NPP’s basic infrastructure, currently being built by SWIFT, will allow better payment experiences to occur the overlay services will actually make them happen.

Getting the first overlay service right is important to the success of the NPP overall and I think BPAY’s expertise will help in a number of ways:

Trusted partner. The launch of the NPP is only two years away, so working with an established partner which is trusted by banks, businesses and consumers is essential to keep things running on time. BPAY’s experience in collaboratively promoting a payment solution with all Australian financial institutions will help us get the ICS to market more quickly and smoothly, with a greater chance of speedy take-up.
Experienced at influencing consumer habits. BPAY has already been successful at moving the payment of invoices and bills to internet and mobile banking. This experience will be very useful in helping people understand, and then adopt, new concepts like payment requests and immediate payments. BPAY’s expertise will be useful in designing a well-branded ICS which resonates with users as well as an effective strategy for customer experience and shared industry marketing.
Familiar rules. All Australian financial institutions are members of the BPAY scheme and are used to working within its rules to develop payment interfaces; this should alleviate some potential implementation challenges.

BPAY’s solution for the ICS is a practical and sensible approach which will deliver more than the NPP’s Basic Infrastructure is capable of, without trying to be all things to all people. It will help to prove the potential of the overlay model and demonstrate that solutions don’t all need to be highly technical to solve customer pain points and deliver value to both payers and payees.

The ICS also deliberately leaves gaps which can be filled by additional overlay services over time, incrementally adding extra functionality to the NPP. This will be good for competition and help meet the objectives set out in the Reserve Bank of Australia’s Strategic Review of Innovation in the Payments System (2012) that was the catalyst for the New Payments Platform.

The ICS is a straight-forward, low-cost solution which should ignite demand in the NPP – it’s a good choice for all of us.

By Nathan Churchward, Senior Manager, Payment Products

Why you need to get ready for the NPP now

Posted on October 20, 2015May 12, 2026 by Cuscal Limited

With Australia’s New Payments Platform (NPP) still around two years from starting it would be easy to assume that financial institutions still have plenty of time to get ready, but the reality is that time is rapidly running out. Financial institutions that get ready now will receive clear economic benefits – those that don’t will miss out.

Why real time payments in Australia will boom
Unlike in some other countries, all of the right functionality will be in place for consumers to embrace the NPP immediately. From day one, the NPP will feature:

A centralised addressing service, allowing banking customers to use their mobile number or email address as an alias for their bank account details.
The first overlay service will have a common brand and broad industry-funded promotion. This will give all participating financial institutions a way to readily fulfil the promise of real-time payments for their customers.
Transaction by transaction settlement, which means that the NPP will be a true real-time payment system capable of offering nearly instantaneous payment processing and settlement.

Of course, for a faster payments system to take off quickly, the conditions also have to be right. For example, there needs to be a critical mass of early adopters who embrace new technology.

Australians fit the bill perfectly.

Not only do we have one of the highest levels of smartphone penetration in the world and the second highest in Asia, we’re also the leader when it comes to adopting mobile banking. Between 2013 and 2014 alone, for example, the use of mobile banking in Australia spiked by more than 70 percent. Today an estimated 38 percent of banking transactions are conducted via smart phones or tablets, a figure that’s only going to continue to grow in the coming years.
Plus, we like embracing new technology. Just look at how contactless payments have exploded here over the last couple of years. It’s proof that when a new payment mechanism is both convenient and broadly accepted, Australians will rapidly adopt it.

It’s time to get ready for the NPP, here’s how
Given that the NPP is likely to take off quickly after its launch in 2017, the time to start planning for it financially, resourcing it appropriately, and getting everything ready for implementation is now. Make no mistake, it’s going to be a lot of work. To be ready, you’ll need to:

Talk to your core and channel banking system providers and budget for implementation activity in 2016 and 2017
Update your core banking systems so they can integrate with NPP transactions
Update your mobile and Internet banking channels to accommodate the additional information that comes with NPP transactions and new transaction types like payment requests and payments with a linked document
Think about change management within your internal operations teams, training them along with sales and customer service teams
Talk to your legal department to update terms and conditions
Communicate with your customers so that they’re ready to use NPP style transactions within the Cuscal network in early 2017
Plan a robust marketing launch that leverages industry activity
Get your customers ready to use the NPP for real-time payments between their account and accounts at most Australian banks by late 2017

No one can deny this is a lot of work. For financial institutions with long planning cycles, it’s going to take at least 18 months, meaning that you need to start now to be ready in time. But despite the effort it will take, there are clear economic benefits for early adopters, while stragglers will miss out.

Positive brand boost
The reality is that failing to embrace and get ready for the NPP just isn’t an option. For banking customers in today’s digital world, it’s almost like telling them the only way they can contact you is by fax. Any financial institution that doesn’t quickly adopt the NPP will be viewed as behind the times, not focused on their customers, and ultimately irrelevant. Just look at all the negative press Barclays garnered for not adopting the UK’s faster payments scheme at the same time as its competitors. Early adopters, on the other hand, will be viewed as modern, forward-looking financial institutions by their customers and competitors.
Catch up to, or overtake, your competition
The Big Four Banks currently have an advantage because of their large customer bases. So when they introduce innovations like payments to mobiles, or real-time payments to anyone that has an account with them, it’s much more useful than when a smaller financial institution offers the same service.However, if you link to the NPP your customers will be able to make real-time payments, straight to mobile, to anyone with an NPP-linked account at any NPP-ready financial institution. This will give you the chance to both level the playing field with the big banks while also leapfrogging any of your competitors that are slower to adapt.
Claim your share of a major new payment stream
What makes things particularly urgent is that when the NPP starts, customers’ mobile phone numbers will only ever be able to be registered as an NPP alias with one financial institution at a time. This means that if your customers don’t register their mobile number with you as an NPP alias they may never use you for instantaneous payments. So if you’re not ready for the NPP when it launches, you may miss out on the majority of income from this payment stream for a long time to come.

The bottom line is that the NPP is rapidly approaching and its adoption by Australian consumers is likely to be quick and widespread. As a financial institution, getting ready for the NPP is a significant piece of work that can’t be accomplished overnight.

With only two years to go, the time to start preparing for the NPP is now. Those who do will reap the benefits. Those who sit back, planning to be ‘fast followers’, will discover they’ve made a serious mistake.

RFi interview: Adrian Lovney on the NPP

Posted on October 16, 2015May 12, 2026 by Cuscal Limited

Rapid innovation has made it an exciting time in the Australian banking industry. At the centre of that excitement is the forthcoming New Payments Platform (NPP), an important initiative that promises to not only position Australia as a global leader in real-time payments, but also help the banking industry address some of its greatest challenges. In the process, it will bring numerous benefits to financial institutions and other organisations, as well as to the customers they serve.

RFi Group recently met with Cuscal’s General Manager of Product & Service, Adrian Lovney who echoed the exciting times ahead for Australian market participants and consumers alike.

Cuscal recently released a white paper on this very subject and we thought it an opportune moment to meet with Adrian and hear all about it from the horse’s mouth.

Speaking on the whitepaper and key messages Cuscal have for market participants, Adrian was quite frank.

“There are obviously a group of banks in Australia who are intimately familiar with the NPP development and organisations like ours (Cuscal), have been involved since day one. What this whitepaper explores are specific opportunities to increase the level of knowledge in the banking sector for not only what the NPP does but how it will go about changing the relationships between banks and their customers.”

Adrian explains that Cuscal’s aim with this particular whitepaper and other forthcoming material, is to close some of those information gaps.

“Obviously agency banking and agency payments is the core of Cuscal’s business, it’s what we do, connecting financial institutions to the payments infrastructure. This paper is about what the NPP is, how we see it helping financial institutions address challenges in the banking sectors.”

He mentions the shift to mobile, the shift away from cash and, particularly relevant the rapid rise of Fintech.“We really just want to help FIs focus their attention on the things they need to do now, to be ready for 2017.”

For Cuscal, some of the insights they feel will be most interesting to the financial services industry start with looking at the New Payments Platform from a customer experience perspective, looking at channels but not forgetting the back office. Adrian stresses it is particularly this thinking about CX and back office processes, in parallel. “It is about looking at the detail and real value in a single national addressing service. How this will inherently shift from BSBs and account numbers, to aliases and mobile phone numbers.”

In the paper Cuscal notes that unlike in other countries, where uptake of the NPP was initially slow, in Australia they expect it will be rapid because of the advanced features the NPP will have from day one.

A few key features Cuscal identifies as setting it apart from its international counterpart platforms include: addressing service availability from its inception and the work banks are doing to coordinate a set of simple, easy to understand messages about the services in a coordinated way. The convenience services launching on the very first day again represents the collaboration of banks working together to roll out what will be good user experiences and products.

It’s also important to note that Adrian’s (and Cuscal’s) perceptions have changed over time in regards to the expected ‘product category’ of the Australian NPP. Three years ago, he would not have hesitated in saying that they thought the NPP would be positioned as a “premium product”, but the same cannot be said for today. “At least in the retail sense, I no longer think this is the case. I see this as a product that is suitable for everyone and absolutely for the everyday banking space. Obviously organisations will make up their own minds regarding pricing, but consumers will categorically expect at a retail level that this will be available from day one, as part of their everyday banking proposition.”

The report goes on to note that, for the New Payments Platform to work quickly, the conditions ‘need to be right’. Cuscal identify, as do many, that Australians have clearly demonstrated that they are prepared to try new things, and quickly. “We love contactless, we love our mobile phones, we are quick to adopt and all of these characteristics showcase the NPP as being surely desired in our marketplace.”

Adrian continues, “Features such as line-by-line settlements mean that the product will be suitable for large value transactions from day one, which may not have been the case under a deferred net settlement model. We are fast to take up, our adoption, our willingness to try new things and a clear shift back to the bank account, shows the market is ripe for New Payments Platform implementation. The work the Australian banking sector has done around mobile banking and digital banking and the role of the mobile phone as a tool, will really mean that the platform will take off quickly. As a caveat here, I do think cards have a lot of life left in them, they are still very much the central part of the relationship, but I think there will be a pivot towards the bank account and I think there will continue to be a demise of cash.”

As far as this insatiable desire for technology and the use of new systems, Cuscal mentions a few noteworthy developments in customer behaviour and expectations, as they adopt new technologies.
“I think the bar is continually being lifted as far as what consumers expect. They don’t want clunky experiences, they don’t want solutions that take effort and time and they certainly don’t expect to read instruction manuals. They are used to ‘Spotify-like’ or ‘Uber-like’ experiences and we are also seeing that they are prepared to sign up for a free service, then, when impressed, willing to pay for added value or experience.”

And finally, what tangible economic benefits will the New Payments Platform provide – “I think it will create more opportunities to attract customers and their money, it will increase ability to cross-sell other products and I think it will bring the transaction account back into the frame and make those accounts more important to customers’ lives. Other clear opportunities are on the cost side, addressing service to reduce mistakes in payments, reducing manual back-office processing and delivering self-service for digital channels.”

It’s certainly picking up pace and we are excited to see Cuscal’s next move.

This article first appeared in the October 2015 edition of RFi Group’s Australian Retail Banker.

NPP: winning the war for customer relationships

Posted on September 17, 2015May 12, 2026 by Cuscal Limited

Moving money around in Australia has historically been a slow process fraught with pain points. Yet with the arrival of the NPP in 2017, many of the inefficiencies that encumber the current system will be removed. In their wake, Australians will be able to transfer funds quickly and easily, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for the very first time — even to accounts at other banks.

For consumers, the NPP is important not only because it will make sending and receiving payments simple and easy, but also because they’ll be able to enjoy the convenience of doing so from their mobile phones, tablets, or computers in just a matter of seconds. For the banking industry, the NPP represents an opportunity to create the back-office efficiencies necessary to deliver these and other services. Even more importantly, it will be essential ammunition in the war for retaining and acquiring new customers.

In the pages that follow, we outline four trends that are currently creating challenges in the banking industry and are therefore central to many companies’ strategies. We also describe what the NPP is and how it will help address those challenges, demonstrating the return on investment (ROI) it will generate along the way.

In addition, we explain why the NPP will become critically important to customer relationships and why, to reap all of its benefits, financial institutions need to start getting ready for it right away. The paper concludes with some practical advice about what financial institutions need to do now to start preparing for the NPP.

Why ATMs need to evolve to avoid extinction

Posted on July 24, 2015May 12, 2026 by Cuscal Limited

When Charles Darwin developed his theories on evolution and natural selection, he probably didn’t imagine that they would one day be applied to aspects of life outside the natural world. Yet the reality is that just like living creatures, man-made devices often need to evolve to survive. That’s certainly true of Australia’s ATMs. Although our nation’s cash-dispensing machines have remained largely the same throughout their history, in today’s increasingly competitive environment they need to change to stay relevant. In fact, unless they evolve into more sophisticated and useful devices, their survival could be at stake.

Back in 1977 when the first ATM was installed in Australia at the Queensland Teachers’ Credit Union in Brisbane, its purpose was as straightforward as it was singular. Just like the tens of thousands of machines that would eventually follow it, it was designed to dispense cash, thus giving customers an alternative to visiting their bank’s local branch to withdraw funds. In the years since, the number of ATMs across Australia has steadily risen, and today there are more than 31,500 terminals across the country.

Yet despite their proliferation, in recent years new “predators” have arrived on the scene that have rendered traditional ATMs less useful and thus threatened their existence. These days, for example, thanks to the rise of contactless transactions it’s easier than ever to make purchases without cash. And, when you do need or want cash, you no longer have to rely on ATMs or in-person visits to your bank to get it. Instead, you can now readily get cash back as part of your transactions at your regular grocery store or service station.

Not surprisingly, conveniences like these have led to a decline in the use of traditional ATMs. In fact, withdrawals from ATMs are currently at their lowest level in a decade, with less than 60 million transactions per month. At the same time, however, the costs associated with running ATM networks continue to rise. Plus, the revenue streams they create are now just a fraction of what they were prior to the 2009 legislation that introduced direct charging.

Faced with challenges like these, it would be easy to conclude that ATMs are on the verge of going extinct. The reality, however, is that much like cash, Australia’s ATMs aren’t going away any time soon because they remain a critical part of our banking system. That said, however, you can and should expect to see traditional ATMs giving way to a new generation of machines with the increased security and functionality they need to stay relevant in today’s rapidly evolving banking environment.

The future of ATMs
For ATMs to continue to play an important role in banking, they need to be capable of more than just the withdrawals they handle today. In fact, they need to offer a new array of functionality that helps to ensure that they’re not only compliant and secure, but that they are also far more useful and convenient for customers. For example, the next generation of ATMs needs to offer functionality such as:

Intelligent deposits that allow customers to make cash and cheque deposits that are otherwise only possible by visiting a teller.
Favorites that keep track of customers’ preferred transactions (e.g. withdraw $100 from savings, print a receipt) and make them available as default services that can be accessed at the click of a button.
Nearest ATM capabilities that show customers where the next closest ATM is located if their normal ATM breaks down.
Contactless and cardless transactions that create a more efficient, hassle-free customer experience and are aligned with the growth of mobile banking.
The ability to have receipts e-mailed to you rather than having them printed out.
Foreign language capabilities so that customers can interact with the ATM in their native language.

As a financial institution, the bottom line is that for your ATMs to survive and remain a source of revenue, they need to evolve from traditional cash-dispensing machines into multi-functional, self-service portals that customers can use to meet a much wider array of their banking needs.

Sharing the load
As ATM usage continues to decline and the cost of providing an evolved, fully-featured ATM increases margins will grow ever tighter and more and more financial institutions will question the financial viability of running their own ATM networks. This is likely to result in financial institutions being more willing to ‘share’ their ATM networks with each other. These shared networks will make ‘hard branding’ of physical ATMs (colour schemes and logos) more difficult but they will be able to overcome this with ‘softer branding’ through personalised digital experiences when customers identify themselves. Networks like the rediATM scheme were created to fill this need.

An evolutionary advantage
For today’s financial institutions, there’s an economic benefit to be gained by installing smarter ATMs. By reducing the frequency at which customers need to visit tellers for basic transactions, for example, these institutions can reduce staff. Alternatively, they can ensure that their staff spend more of their time engaged in higher value transactions, including cross-selling other products.

While foot traffic will always remain important to some financial institutions, allowing staff to dedicate more time adding value to their customers’ banking experience is a goal that every financial institution has in common. Embracing the evolution of ATMs into smarter and more helpful devices can be an important step towards making that happen.

RFi interview: integrity, innovation & inspiration

Posted on July 3, 2015May 12, 2026 by Cuscal Limited

This month RFi Group sat down with the experienced and personable Craig Kennedy, Managing Director of Cuscal, to discuss the payments landscape in Australia, the shift towards ‘mobile first’ and the three themes that will drive growth for Cuscal in the coming year.

Craig cites the great people he works with, both internally and externally, as the aspect that he enjoys most about his role. “There is a great team here at Cuscal. We’ve got interesting and engaged clients and a bunch of supportive and aligned shareholders with a great board of directors – that’s a pretty inspiring combination.”

Craig references two stand out factors at Cuscal that incite his pride in the brand. “We function with integrity. I think anyone that has engaged with Cuscal or worked with us will say that we go about our business with a high degree of integrity. We also have a can-do approach. I’m pretty proud – there are things we have done that other organisations couldn’t get done in the time allotted. We’ve been able to do that for our clients without compromising the end result. For me it’s a combination of the can-do attitude and integrity.”

“We now manufacture almost all of our own products. Because we don’t have legacy platforms and are not competing with other clients for priority… our time and cost to market has significantly improved in the last five years.”

Over the last five years, Cuscal has grown and evolved significantly. Craig explains that Cuscal now has control over its key products and processes. “We now manufacture almost all of our own products. We have processing capabilities and the payments links necessary to perform key payment functions in Australia. When you’ve got those functions sitting out with a third party, the reality is that you have to compete with other clients to get priority, which is generally given to the largest paying client. Because we don’t have legacy platforms and are not competing with other clients for priority, our time and cost to market has significantly improved in the last five years.”

Craig mentions that the diversity at Cuscal, in relation to both staff and clients, has experienced dramatic change in recent years. “A lot of people perceive us to be associated with credit unions or the mutual industry. While that’s still the case, the reality is we now have a very diverse shareholding and our client base is growing significantly, especially outside the mutual sector. We have major retailers, national banks, regional banks, international banks ¿ we are a very different organisation today. If you walked through the floor here you would see people from all different nationalities and cultures. We’ve got a pretty good gender balance too: 30% of our senior leaders are female and that’s growing. We are in the process of putting in more structure and setting some objectives and targets across all of those attributes.”

“I expect that in a couple of years from now when we look back at the 12 months that we are about to embark on, it will be the year that payments via mobile phones move from the fringe to the main stream. There have been a lot of barriers and friction points, but they are breaking down at such a rate that I expect the tipping point will occur in the next 12 months.”

Craig gave us some insight into his predictions for the payments market in Australia over the next 12 months and what he believes will be essential to winning in this market. “I expect that in a couple of years from now when we look back on the 12 months we are about to embark on, it will be the year that payments via mobile phones move from the fringe to the main stream. There have been a lot of barriers and friction points, but they are breaking down at such a rate that I expect that in a couple of years from now when we look back at the 12 months that we are about to embark on, it will be the year that payments via mobile phones move from the fringe to the main stream. There have been a lot of barriers and friction points, but they are breaking down at such a rate that I expect the tipping point will occur in the next 12 months. I think that will drive mobile banking and payment activity closer together and as a result, increase the level of customer engagement with banks via mobile.”

“The key elements to win in this market will be to keep things simple and convenient, to use well integrated applications and to execute regular and relevant functional updates. I don’t think it’s difficult to stand up an interesting application, but to keep it contemporary and top of the pile – that’s a constant challenge. It’s much more dynamic today than historic ways of engaging with a customer.”

Craig believes that as Cuscal’s profile is raised due to the products it is building, combined with the acquisition of SPS (Strategic Payments Services), one of its main challenges will be to keep current and prospective clients abreast of its core capabilities.

“There is more demand for our products and services than ever before, but ironically we are still finding that some long standing clients aren’t aware of all the things we can do. One of our challenges is keeping the market up to date with what our capabilities are. With all of the opportunities for Cuscal, I think managing our capacity and our priorities will be our biggest challenge in the next 12 months.”

When it comes to innovation, Craig provides some insights from alternative and offshore markets. “I think Uber is a really innovative concept and a cool experience. That to me, when you combine functionality with utility and remove the friction, that’s when it gets interesting. I also think the New Payments Platform provides a really interesting piece of infrastructure for people to innovate and apply. I’m expecting in time there will be lots of innovation around overlay services.”

“I was in the States about a year ago and did the Silicon Valley tour and what struck me over there is that the more dysfunctional and the more legacy you’ve got to deal with and the less cooperation there is at the centre, by necessity it drives innovation. There is such a great source of innovation there because there are so many disconnected parts and people are building applications to bring them together.”

Craig elaborates on the three points of focus for Cuscal over the coming year. “There are three themes that we are looking to build more product and investment around; mobility, real time and data/analytics. We are building out more mobile banking and transactional applications – that will continue to be a focus. The second focus for us as an organisation is real time and NPP. From our point of view, the concept that you could ask for information or get confirmation over night or the next business day has long since passed and people are looking for instant gratification. If you combine that with mobility it’s a pretty powerful combination. Finally, the third theme is the relevance of data and the analytics around data. Whether that is to give more protection around fraudulent transactions, to be able to make you the right offer at the right time or simply to understand you better. If we were looking to build new products, buy more capability into the organisation or acquire another business, it would fit into one of those categories and we would want it to bring some of those capabilities and an attached client base with it.”

“We are looking for further acquisitions at the moment. We find that there’s either someone who has got a legacy business that has peaked and they are looking to exit before they get stuck with it or you’ve got two teenagers who have set up an application in their parents’ garage and they think it is the next google.” Craig laughs, “I’m looking for something in between those two extremes.”

Before the interview concludes, we ask Craig about his success and where he draws his inspiration from. He allows us a rare look into his personal life. “Different people have very different definitions of success and I’m not sure that I have found a definition that I really want to adopt as my own yet. The person that has inspired me the most in my life would be my father. There are two main qualities that make him stand out; he was incredibly determined and persistent, which allowed him to overcome a lot of adversity and, right up until the day he died he had a huge thirst to learn. I’ve got teenage children and now that I see what they are going through, I don’t know how dad dealt with us – I don’t know how he had the energy or the desire. And I was the youngest of seven! As someone who used to start work at 4am he would come home and help us with our homework and if there were subjects he didn’t know, he would learn them so he could help us. To be really honest, I’m far more calculated with what I try to absorb and learn – he seemed to just soak it all up.” “I remember someone saying when they were 19, they couldn’t believe how out of touch and stupid their parents were and by the time they were 21, they were amazed by how much they had learnt. As you get older, you realise that there would have been a bit of advice you would have benefited from along the way. So I’m enjoying all of those clashes now with my boys!”

This article first appeared in the July 2015 edition of RFI Group‘s Australian Retail Banker

Explaining the New Payments Platform

Posted on June 1, 2015May 12, 2026 by Cuscal Limited

Recent research conducted by Roy Morgan Research found that only 5% of Australian organisations are aware of the New Payments Platform (NPP) and very few have any idea of the impact it will have to Australia’s payments industry.

To help combat this gap in knowledge we have recently produced:

A simple animation explaining how the NPP will work
A more detailed presentation which details how it will disrupt current payment systems and includes some technical details
An NPP fact sheet – which shows the services Cuscal will offer

Our senior executives have also been at a number of industry conferences explaining how the NPP will work and the impact it will have on Australia’s payments industry.

Cuscal is one of the lead participants, alongside the RBA and major banks, working to design and build Australia’s NPP.

Brian Parker (CIO) was a guest speaker at Data Action’s CXO conference introducing the NPP to C-Suite members of 7 Credit Unions in Adelaide.
Adrian Lovney debated whether incumbent banks or digital disruptors would be more successful in developing NPP Overlay Services at RFI’s Australian Payments Innovation Forum in Sydney.
Adrian Lovney was on the panel discussion “Payments Modernisation and New Payments Platform (NPP)” at the Cards and Payments Conference in Melbourne.
Colin Sultana spoke about mobile, digital and the NPP at the Customer Owned Banking Association (COBA) Colloquium in combination with Filene Research.
Nathan Churchward spoke at the VIC/TAS COBA Insight Seminar in Ballarat.

For more information about the NPP or the services we will offer, please email npp@cuscal.com.au

Wirecard & Cuscal announce Australian cooperation

Posted on May 29, 2015May 12, 2026 by Cuscal Limited

Aschheim (Munich), 29 May 2015: Wirecard Group, with its New Zealand subsidiary GFG Group Limited, today announced that Cuscal Limited, one of Australia’s leading payment services companies, has selected Wirecard as solution partner for its next generation acquiring and issuing processing business.

Cuscal, established in 1992, provides payment services to more than 100 banks, mutual sector organisations, airlines and other organisations in Australia. Cuscal processes around 14 percent of EFT transactions in Australia as well as managing one third of Australia’s ATMs and over 5.5 million debit, credit and prepaid cards.

Cuscal’s clients include the majority of Australia’s credit unions as well as some of Australia’s largest banks and the domestic operations of foreign banks. Increasingly Cuscal is becoming the preferred partner of choice to service the interests of non-financial services clients, such as Virgin Australia or the Queensland Government.

“We are very happy to announce this business relationship with Wirecard and are eager to launch innovative new services to our clients on this new platform,” stated Craig Kennedy, Managing Director at Cuscal. “With Wirecard, we are introducing best-in-class in payments technology to the Australian market, which will extend our portfolio of innovative services in an ideal way.”

Wirecard’s acquiring and issuing platform represents the result of almost two decades of international payments experience, supporting all debit and credit card schemes on an integrated high-performance real-time transaction platform. Wirecard’s solution is based on a modular architecture and is supporting the latest innovations in card and mobile payments.

“We are thrilled to be working with Cuscal, a company that has been a driver for innovation in Australian payments for decades. Cuscal and Wirecard are both at the forefront of technological innovation in the payments sector, in particular driving the deployment of next generation payment products. Together we will be able to serve this rapidly developing market even more effectively,” said Andreas Kazamias, Managing Director of GFG Group.

Wirecard Media Contact
Wirecard AG
Maren Brandt Tel.: +49 (0) 89 4424 1425 Email: maren.brandt@wirecard.com

Media contact
Jake Waddell jwaddell@cuscal.com.au 0417 312 902

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Author: Cuscal Limited