ACCC Approves Merger of BPAY, eftpos and NPPA

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) announced that it has authorised the proposed merger of BPAY Group Holding Pty Ltd and its subsidiaries (together, BPAY), eftpos Payments Australia Ltd (eftpos) and NPP Australia Ltd (NPPA), after accepting a court-enforceable undertaking offered by the parties.   

BPAY, eftpos and NPPA are each providers of payment services, and each own and operate payments infrastructure. Bpay is an electronic bill payments system, Eftpos operates a network of payment terminals, while NPPA oversees all of the transactions moving through Australia's updated payments system, the NPP.

The undertaking offered by the parties sought to address industry fears that the merger would weaken payment competition, with the parties offering to maintain current levels of service, including least-cost routing (LCR) and the eftpos payments scheme, for at least four years.

The undertaking also requires the merger parties to ensure that eftpos and NPPA develop and make available a set of Prescribed Services within agreed timeframes. The merger parties have also committed to ensuring that BPAY, eftpos and NPPA agree an industry wide standard supporting payment with QR codes by the end of June 2022.

“We do not consider that the merger of these parties will substantially lessen competition in any payments market, after taking into account the court-enforceable undertaking,”ACCC Chair Rod Sims said.”The ACCC found that, at a high level, the services of the three companies do not compete closely.”

Last month, the ACCC has released statistics on financial scams within the country, showing that Australians have lost more than AU$70 million to investment scams so far this year.