National Payment Platform ball now in the CB court
The much-debated National Payment Platform (NPP) project suspended in August 2017 will be further reviewed before it gets off the ground under the watchful eye of the Central Bank (CB), official sources said.
The CB, now coming under the Finance Ministry on a directive of the President, will supervise and monitor the entire process of developing and implementing of the NPP to facilitate digital payments with the working of the core platform, the payment gateways of banks, and digital payment applications, a top official involved in this NPP task told the Business Times.
In 2015, the then Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake allocated a sum of Rs.25 bullion from the national budget for the NPP. This NPP is to be devised by integrating traditional and nontraditional payment and settlement systems while separating business messaging from financial messaging.
The NPP will be within the regulations of the Payment and Settlement Systems Act No 28 of 2005 and in line with the requirements of the Central Bank (CB), State Minister of National Policies and Economic Affairs, Dr. Harsha de Silva told the Business Times adding that the ball is now in the CB court.
Financial messaging will be the scope of the CB while business messaging will be the scope of various other innovative entrepreneurs’ ventures, he said adding that marrying traditional and non-traditional systems will not be an easy task, but progress has been made in identifying a couple of alternatives.
He noted that he took the initiative to bring the NPP within the regulations of the Payment and Settlement Systems Act No 28 of 2005 and in line with the requirements of the Central Bank (CB),
The validity of the approval given by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Management (CCEM) and the subsequent endorsement of the cabinet to set up a hybrid company as a separate entity of the NPP to facilitate ‘single button transactions’ is now in doubt due to the President’s directive to abolish the CCEM.
Meanwhile issuing media release, the CB rejected claims Minister de Silva had “summoned the Monetary Board to his Ministry and asked the Board to implement ICTA’s shoddy payment gateway”.
The CB said the State Minister convened a meeting of stakeholders to resolve a longstanding issue regarding the way forward on a NPP and two independent members of the Monetary Board had expressed an interest in participating in the meeting to assist in finding a solution to a long outstanding issue.