The development of the electronic payment system took a major step forward earlier this year with the launch of the New Payments Platform (NPP). This system allows people to make payments 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, using just a simple identifier such as a mobile phone number or an email address.
It also allows a lot of information to accompany the payment. I expect that over time this extra functionality will further reduce the use of cash in the economy and also improve the efficiency of the electronic system. The number of transactions through the NPP is steadily increasing (Graph 5). After a relatively low-key start, there are now around 400,000 NPP transactions per day.