Australia Payments Plus Picks Swift to Battle Payments Fraud

Australian Payments Plus (AP+) has chosen Swift to assist in improving the country’s payment capabilities.

Swift will build a service to reduce misdirect payments and boost defenses against payment fraud, the global payments network announced Tuesday (March 19) in a news release emailed to PYMNTS.

AP+ picked Swift to “build confirmation of payee, which is a security measure that helps protect consumers from fraud by confirming the identity of the payee before a payment is made,” Swift said in the release provided to PYMNTS.

“This is done by comparing the payee’s name entered by the payer with the name associated with the payee’s account,” the company added.

The service would be delivered via Australia’s New Payments Platform (NPP), which was built by and run by Swift, standardized APIs and a centralized account matching service managed by AP+, the release said.

“Making payments safe, instant and frictionless is at the heart of everything we do at Swift, and we are committed to supporting the Australian financial industry in its fight against scammers,” said Suresh Rajalingam, head of Oceania at Swift.

Added Adrian Lovney, AP+’s chief payment and schemes officer: “The development of an industry wide Confirmation of Payee service will play an important role in reducing certain types of scams resulting in misdirection of a payment to the wrong account as well to avoid mistaken payments being made to incorrect account numbers.”

According to the release, features of the new service will be built and tested this year, allowing financial institutions to integrate it into their banking channels beginning in 2025.

PYMNTS spoke last month with Juan Franco, senior vice president of eCommerce for the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region at Nuvei, about Australia’s role as a leader in payments innovation.

For example, that report said, the country’s eCommerce market is notable in the APAC region for its maturity, substantial market size, and early adoption of innovative payment methods such as buy now, pay later (BNPL).

Australia was also one of the early adopters of contactless payments, and has embraced the faster payments trend, launching the NPP in 2018 to allow consumers and businesses to make near real-time payments on a 24/7 basis.

Franco said the landscape owes much of its success to a mix of regulatory support and the country’s strong yet somewhat isolated economic structure.

“When you go to Australia, you really get surprised at how advanced and innovative they are,” he said.