Around $1 billion worth of money is now moving around between bank accounts each weekend, industry organisation Payments NZ says.
This includes some $200 million in electronic funds transfers at point of sale (EFTPOS) transactions on average each weekend, along with automatic and bill payments, plus as direct debits and credits.
New Zealand shifted to seven-day payments in May 2023, from the traditional five-day business week. Prior to the daily processing of payments, money was held up until the next business day which would usually be Monday, but could be a day or two later during public holidays.
Payments NZ chief executive Steve Wiggins said the transaction volumes on Mondays have fallen by 30% over the last year, with the move to seven-day payments.
“Seven-day payments have reduced risk across the financial system because we no longer have a backlog of payments each weekend going through systems on a Monday," Wiggins said.
He added that seeing value move quickly and smoothly through the economy regardless of the week is a great enabler for business and growth.
While the move to seven-day payments is hailed as a success, the introduction of real-time transactions is yet to materialise.
Australia has had real-time payments since 2018, but New Zealand is unlikely to get them before 2030. The Reserve Bank has criticised the slow progress towards real-time payments, with New Zealand being one of only two Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries along with Israel not to have them.
6 Comments
I used my phone when google pay first came out. After a few months of novelty i switched back to using my card. Just found it a bit cumbersome tapping my heavy phone. My wallet is much smaller and lighter so easier to get that out and tap it. Pretty minor difference, but I just don't see a compelling reason to tap my phone instead of my wallet apart from showing off how techy you are?
You no longer need to take your wallet anywhere. There is no need to even have a wallet anymore. And most people have their phone already in their hand so its not that difficult to just wave it over a reader.
Also, you are not using Google Pay. You are using Google Wallet to store a digital version of your credit card, ID, and store cards. Your phone is your wallet.
Why would i have my phone in my hand already while using my hands to order a meal from a touchscreen at the counter, or trying on new shoes in a shop?
If you don't have a wallet, where do you keep your backup cash from when the payments terminal isn't working (hello global IT outage)
If you don't have a wallet, where do you keep your eftpos card to use in stores that don't have paywave or which charge exorbitant fees?
They can take my wallet from my cold dead hands.
The app your card gets added to might currently be called Google Wallet, but the banks (BNZ, ASB, and Westpac at least) still call it Google Pay. Googles never ending discontinuation and rebranding of products doesn't help.
https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/google-pay-vs-google-wallet-whats-the-…
https://www.asb.co.nz/credit-cards/google-pay.html
https://www.westpac.co.nz/personal/ways-to-bank/smart-ways-to-pay/googl…
Australia is a laggard, the UK implemented realtime payments in 2008.
When i moved to the UK i couldn't believe how behind NZ they were with 3 day payments. When i moved to back to NZ i couldn't believe how far behind the UK we were.
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