Innovations in Australia’s payment systems in recent decades have facilitated a shift away from manual processes towards electronic means of delivering and reconciling payments, providing considerable cost savings to government and benefits to the broader Australian community.

Deloitte Access Economics was commissioned by Visa AP (Australia) Pty Ltd to examine the potential benefits of introducing prepaid cards for a range of Federal and state government payments. Prepaid cards are not yet in widespread use in Australia but they offer a number of benefits that are not currently available. As payment systems around the world continue to rapidly evolve, and new instruments and channels are developed, there continues to be opportunities to adopt more efficient and better tailored government payment processes.

In this report, it is estimated that switching from current payment methods to prepaid cards for select government payments could provide annual gains in excess of $240 million for Australian consumers and governments. Over a four year period, this equates to almost $1 billion worth of benefits.

Published: April 2012