Reserve Bank of Australia helping agencies access new payment features
Summary
According to Zufic, the ageing mainframe slowed the RBAs ability to react, integrate, and provide new services. "We had a very high bar of the zero-customer impact or change requirements, so we had to deal with all the idiosyncrasies of those 30 years of customisation and reverse engineer to manage that," he said. Zufic added that through the program, the RBA also realised there was a need to establish a cloud-based API gateway to allow other government agencies to access its new features and functionalities, so they could improve their own systems. The pair worked together to expose RBAs internal web services to enable real-time services to validate BPay biller codes and CRNs, deliver open banking requirements, and enable agencies to access to NPP real-time payment instructions and enquiries. Zufic highlighted how, for instance, exposing the APIs for NPP meant agencies could quickly deliver emergency payments.