Where intervention is required, the academic literature suggests that we might look first of all to ensure compatibility between competing standards – for instance, by rules governing access and interconnection between competing networks – before setting detailed standards themselves. So there is not a presumption that a black-letter regulatory solution will be adopted.
In fact, at the time that the current regulatory arrangements for Australia’s payment systems were established, there was an expectation that a co-regulatory model would be followed. In this view, industry would progress reform for the most part and the Reserve Bank’s powers would be used only occasionally, as a last resort, where reform could not otherwise be achieved.