REPS Monthly Statistics Updates

NATIONAL SWITCH STATISTICS

The Payment Systems Department runs two mission critical systems for the continued operation of business and consumers in PNG, with the support of other departments of the bank.  The two systems are Kina Automated Transfer System (KATS) and Retail Electronic Payment System (REPS), which is operated by a dedicated group of employees who ensures their smooth operations. The inability of the payment systems, either KATS & REPS to process payments effectively and efficiently could disrupt nationwide economic activity.

What does REPS Process? 

REPS processes card-based transactions using ATMs and EFTPOS terminals.  The six members of REPS include commercial banks, Micro Banks, Savings and Loan organizations.  They are BSP, Westpac, Kina Bank, NCSL, MiBank and PMBL.  Any ATM or EFTPOS terminal offered by a REPS Member is open to the local debit cards offered by any other Member.  This means a card issued by any of these Members can be used at other REPS Member devices making in-store payments easy and access to cash available at virtually all ATMs and EFTPOS counters in PNG. 

REPS also processes Instant Payment Transactions (IPT).  IPT was launched in March 2021. These are a real time digital payment currently offered by the non-bank REPS members – NCSL, MiBank and PMBL.  IPT volumes remain low as expected until the Commercial Banks offer them. Refer to table 1. Commercial banks will be added when they have the necessary system capabilities.

REPS is a 24/7 system.  It operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week – every day of the year.  If people need to make a card-based payment on the weekend or after business hours REPS processes the transaction.  An important transaction offered by REPS (and local debit cards) is the EFTPOS Purchase + Cashback.  This allows people to make a card payment at a shop and get cash at the same time. 

When did REPS Go-Live? 

The Retail Electronic Payments System (REPS), with the National Switch at its core, commenced operation in 21 July 2019, with three inaugural members, namely BSP, Kina Bank and NCSL and three more institutions joined on 1st of September. They were Westpac Bank, PMBL and MiBank. This brings the total of six (6) financial institutions connected to National Switch. Another important development during the period was the acquisition of ANZ Bank Retail Customers by Kina Bank on the 23rd September, which resulted to significant increase in volumes processed by the National Switch. 

After the launch in July 2019, REPS continued to deliver improved access with minimal disruptions and processed over 76.6 million transactions (excluding balance enquiries), valued at K13.5 billion at the end of May 2024. 

Ongoing Developments 

In May 2024, the draft National Payments Strategy (NPS) 2024-2026 has been released to the National Payments Council for review and feedback by May. Following the review, the strategy will be updated and, once endorsed by the Board of BPNG, will be made a public document.

The scope for the REPS Phase-2 has been agreed, with a focus on four (4) key areas over the next 12 months –

• An assessment of the payment system operated in PNG against the internationally recognized Principles for Financial Market Infrastructures (PFMI) standard.
• Development of a Business Case to determine whether BPNG should invest additional funds to make the card switch PCI/DSS compliant so that it is able to process EMV (scheme) cards. This is being driven by the industry moving away from mag-stripe cards, which are susceptible to fraud, towards EMV chipped cards which are safer but do incur additional fees.
• Implementing the lessons learned from the pilot of the Instant Payments System (IPS) and addressing the shortfalls before moving the system into full production later in the year. The focus of this activity is to provide an Instant Payments platform that supports digital and mobile payments, and allows for a wider range of payment services to support the objective of financial inclusion.
• Development of a Business Case to determine the viability of offering a white label service for the onshore production and settlement of chipped cards on behalf of all card issuers in PNG. 

Statistics from all Participating Institutions[1]

(BSP, Kina, NCSL, WPC, MiBank & PMBL)

Total Values and Volumes Processed by National Switch 

Table 1. REPS Summary Statistics

	Total Transaction Volumes		IPT Values
Period	Domestic Debit Cards	Instant Payment Transactions (IPT)	Total (PGK)	Average Transaction Value (PGK)
2019[2]	4,336,050	N/A	N/A	N/A
2020	13,825,844	N/A	N/A	N/A
2021[3]	18,118,532	211	84,751	402
2022	25,937,214	779	358,373	460
2023	28,611,453	570	208,836	366
2024[4]	22,109,709	607	251,576	414
January	2,330,321	69	35,107	509
February	2,371,821	93	39,310	423
March	2,439,152	75	33,332	444
April	2,355,687	115	42,108	366
May	2,573,828	98	39,762	406
June	2,488,792	58	21,486	370
July[5]	2,543,463	51	26,816	526
August	2,550,511	48	13,655	284
September[6]	2,456,134	0	0	0

[1] Table 1 statistics “Excludes” transactions between Kina Bank and MiBank. Refer Table 3.

[2] On 21st July 2019, National Switch went live with BSP, Kina Bank and NCSL. The other three (3) new members, namely Westpac, PMBL and MiBank were connected on 01st September 2019.

[3] On 28th March 2021, Instant Payments Transactions (IPT’s) went live.

[4] The 2024 figures are up to September.

[5] Tisa Bank & Credit Bank were connected to the National Switch on 8th July & 15th July, respectively.

[6] There are no IPT transactions in September due to NCSL and NBC/PMBL made a decision to disconnect from REPS IPT services pending the review and an IPT solution by BPNG.

Table 2.  Debit Card Statistics

PERIOD	VOLUMES									VALUES
	ATM			POS			Chargeable Industry Volumes [1]	Chargeable Cumulative Industry Volumes	Total Vol	Cumulative Total Volumes	Industry Values (PGK'm)	Cumulative Industry Values (PGK'm)
	Withdwl	Bal Enq (Not Charged)	Cumulative BI	Purch & Cash Adv + C/Back	Purchase	Bal Enq (Not Charged)
2019[7]	852,156	511,939	511,939	1,162,399	1,809,554		3,824,111	3,824,111	4,336,050	4,336,050	693.60	693.60
2020	2,648,001	1,572,413	2,084,352	3,874,371	5,731,059		12,253,431	16,077,542	13,825,844	18,161,894	2,192.75	2,886.35
2021	2,968,050	3,806,257	5,890,609	4,729,975	6,614,250		14,312,275	30,389,817	18,118,532	36,280,426	2,539.45	5,425.79
2022[8]	3,490,260	1,604,040	7,494,649	6,338,566	8,639,381	5,864,967	18,468,207	48,858,024	25,937,214	62,217,640	3,300.05	8,725.79
2023	3,218,970	1,418,418	8,913,067	6,710,903	9,566,107	7,697,055	19,495,980	68,354,004	28,611,453	90,829,093	3,419.61	12,122.08
2024	2,157,194	988,698	9,901,765	5,552,641	7,340,953	6,069,913	15,180,826	83,535,194	22,109,399	112,938,802	2,515.01	14,637.09
Jan	225,768	95,635	9,008,702	589,379	776,398	643,141	1,591,545	69,945,549	2,330,321	93,159,414	285.79	12,407.87
Feb	241,937	100,586	9,109,288	593,032	783,378	652,888	1,618,347	71,563,896	2,371,821	95,531,235	279.78	12,687.65
Mar	237,475	97,066	9,206,354	623,277	812,623	668,711	1,673,375	73,237,271	2,439,152	97,970,387	274.32	12,961.97
Apr	231,037	93,470	9,299,824	589,524	802,199	639,457	1,622,504	74,859,775	2,355,687	100,326,074	268.68	13,230.65
May	258,353	107,764	9,407,588	633,652	857,279	716,780	1,749,284	76,609,315	2,573,828	102,899,902	292.52	13,523.17
June	238,610	204,027	9,611,615	586,428	794,154	665,573	1,749,230	78,358,235	2,488,792	105,388,384	269.42	13,792.59
July	248,514	101,437	9,713,052	646,399	848,576	698,537	1,743,489	80,102,088	2,543,463	107,932,157	290.58	14,083.17
Aug	241,272	96,853	9,809,905	655,842	850,931	705,613	1,748,045	81,850,133	2,550,511	110,482,668	280.90	14,364.06
Sep[9]	234,538	91,860	9,901,765	635,108	815,415	679,213	1,685,061	83,535,194	2,456,134	112,938,802	273.02	14,637.09

[7] On 21st July, National Switch Went-Live with BSP, Kina Bank and NCSL. On the 01st of September 2019, three additional institutions, Westpac, PMBL & MiBank joined the National Switch and following on 22nd September Kina Bank acquired the Retail business from ANZ Bank. This resulted to substantial increase in the volumes of transactions switched via the National Switch.

[8] Beginning year 2022 - POS BI was part of ATM BI calculations effective 29 Mar 21 to 31 Dec 21. It was then captured as separate item column effective 01Jan22 under POS BI. The statistics also reveals that most cardholders use POS to check their balances instead of ATM’s.

[9] September 2024 – the National Switch processed over K14.6b. The volumes processed during the same period was over 83.5 million (chargeable) & 29.5 million (non-chargeable) transactions.

 

Chart 1. REPS Charts from all participating Institutions

This chart indicates the monthly volumes by type of cards used for payment and aggregate values in K’ millions.

NB: Monthly industry values (K’ millions) shown in this chart, when added together month by month since go-live in July 2019, will equate to the cumulative values (K’ millions) shown in the statistics table on the previous page.

In April 2021 REPS introduced the Point of Sale- Balance Inquiry (POI-BI) transaction. The figures above for ATM Bal Inquiry include the POS BI volumes from April 2021 onwards.  As this transaction has no fees it has been popular with end-customers and its impact can be seen from May onwards. 

Volumes were particularly high in the December festive season and have returned to normal trend in January.  Note as well that POS BI was effectively separated from ATM Bal Inquiry and captured as a separate line item effective Jan-2022.

 

Note: The black trend-line on the graph shows POS Balance enquiry (Not chargeable) segregated and reported separately beginning in January 2022 – Refer to Table-2. April 2023 indicates a spike in the POS BI transactions due to upgrade of BSP’s Core Banking Services early April that affected BSP customer’s mobile banking and Internet banking services. 

MiBank Transactions with Kina Bank

In August 2020 Kina Bank and MiBank commenced a business arrangement relating to card transactions for the MiBank customers to be routed via Kina Bank.  The arrangement means:

1. REPS sends all MiBank card transactions to Kina Bank, who in turn sends them to MiBank;
2. When MiBank customers use Kina Bank terminals they are routed directly to MiBank and they are not sent to REPS.

As a part of this arrangement MiBank, as the card Issuer, has agreed to have the transactions performed on Kina Bank terminals charged by BPNG in the same way as if they were processed using REPS. 

These transaction volumes are reported to BPNG every day.  Table 3 contains these statistics.  These transactions are in addition to the volumes shown in Tables 1 & 2. 

Table 3. Statistics from MiBank & Kina Bank

Total Values and Volumes Processed by National Switch

PERIOD	VOLUMES								VALUES
	ATM With drawal	ATM Bal Enq (Not Charged)	Cumul ative BI	POS - Purch & Cash Adv + Cash Back	POS Purchase	Chargeable Industry Volumes [1]	Chargeable Cumulative Industry Volumes	Total Volumes	Cumulative Total Volumes	Industry Values  (PGK'm)	Cumulative Industry Values (PGK'm)
2020	10,925	4,862	12,732	5,514	6,541	22,980	22,980	27,842	27,842	13.63	13.63
2021	47,054	18,422	23,284	29,960	34,833	111,847	134,827	130,269	158,111	52.82	66.45
2022	98,470	40,004	63,288	73,698	82,326	254,494	389,321	294,498	452,609	112.25	178.66
2023	130,043	52,066	115,354	107,843	145,229	343,348	732,669	435,181	887,790	137.61	324.75
2024[10]	107,220	39,586	154,940	115,197	141,202	363,619	1,136,055	403,205	1,290,995	117.24	440.41
Jan	10,446	4,164	119,518	10,710	13,939	35,095	807,531	39,259	927,049	12.28	337.07
Feb	11,778	4,541	124,059	11,855	14,912	38,545	846,076	43,086	970,135	13.23	350.29
Mar	11,904	4,786	128,845	11,854	14,655	38,413	884,489	43,199	1,013,334	12.83	363.13
Apr	11,204	4,242	133,087	12,305	15,669	39,178	923,667	43,420	1,056,754	12.79	374.31
May	13,474	5,012	138,099	13,914	16,937	44,325	967,992	49,337	1,106,091	14.10	388.41
Jun	11,284	4,112	142,211	12,838	15,597	39,719	1,007,711	43,831	1,149,922	11.55	399.96
Jul	12,087	4,521	146,732	13,122	16,205	41,414	1,049,125	45,935	1,195,857	13.11	413.07
Aug	12,465	4,253	150,985	14,361	16,870	43,696	1,092,821	47,949	1,243,806	13.49	426.56
Sep	12,578	3,955	154,940	14,238	16,418	43,234	1,136,055	47,189	1,290,995	13.85	440.41

[10] The 2024 statistics only shows the accumulated totals to September 2024.

Chart 2. REPS Charts on transaction between MiBank and Kina Bank.

This chart indicates the monthly volumes by type of cards used for payment and aggregate values in K’ millions for MiBank & KINA.

 

NB: December 2022 monthly industry values (K’ millions) shown on chart 2 reflects an increase in value due to festive spending by MiBank customers. In 2024, industry values returned  to normal pattern. Transaction volumes for July are higher than June.

 

 Payment Systems Department

02nd October 2024