New system allows more competition, says Fleming

THE retail electronic payments system (REPS) initiative by Bank of Papua New Guinea (BPNG) would allow more competition and more choice for consumers in the payments system, an official says.
Bank South Pacific chief executive officer Robin Fleming, pictured, said with the REPS initiative, BPNG was building and providing the infrastructure that would allow smaller financial institutions to become more involved in electronic payments at a lower cost to those institutions than would otherwise be the case if they had to build and maintain the switches themselves.
“The fees that will be charged for REPS are lower, especially for smaller financial institutions and BPNG has structured the fees to allow for the financial capabilities of those institutions,” he said.
“Overtime costs will reduce and consumers will have more options for their banking services.”
Fleming said the existing payments system had been based on the large commercial banks having electronic interchanges with each other which allowed for electronic payments between customers of other banks to be transacted using a series of one-on-one electronic interchanges.
“These interchanges are expensive to build, maintain and keep on an upgrade path that ensures technology developments are progressed and information technology (IT) security standards are preserved,” he said.
“They also require skilled and expert IT staff to operate.
“As a consequence of the cost and expertise required to build and maintain these switches smaller financial institutions have not be able to participate fully in the electronic payments system.”
Fleming said as the largest bank in the country with the most number of customers, automated teller machines (ATMs) and electronic funds transfer point of sale (Eftpos) terminals, it was important that BSP fully participated in the REPS project.