Improve security of bank payments with PayID

Have you heard of PayID? Essentially you associate your bank account with your phone number, email or ABN and then in future, if someone wants to transfer money into your bank account, you give them the mobile phone number (for example) rather than your BSB and Bank account details.

It’s very handy when you’re out for dinner with friends or family and you pay for the entire meal (on your credit card because then you get points right?). Everyone else says they’ll transfer money from their bank accounts back to you, but that usually means finding your bank account details; giving those details to everyone; and hoping they enter the details correctly.

Under PayID you give them whatever ID you’ve associated with your account. And if their bank supports PayID, they can enter that information to transfer the money they owe you, rather than the BSB and account details.

Yeah that’s great but what about in my small business? Can I use PayID then?

Definitely!

In fact, I encourage all my small business clients to use PayID when they’re paying me as it allows for near real-time payments. No more waiting for a couple of days whilst the digital ones and zeros move from their bank account to my bank account!

And no more concerns at their end about incorrectly copying a BSB / account number from an invoice, just copy my mobile phone number from their contacts and paste it into the payment field! Simple.

You can associate multiple PayIDs with one bank account but each PayID can only be linked to one bank account at a time. So if you have bank accounts with two different banks you’ll need to use different PayIDs with each bank.

If you do decide to use PayID, then you can advertise this through a logo on your website or printed material – you will have to agree to Terms and Conditions for use though which include not altering the logo’s appearance.

I’ve not yet done this – but I’ll get around to it eventually I’m sure!

I’m convinced! But does my bank offer PayID?

There’s a full list of banks and financial institutions that offer PayID here. It is pretty recent having been updated in November but if your financial institution isn’t listed then I recommend getting in touch with them anyway.

Check with your bank or financial institution to see what types of PayIDs they offer and whether there are any limitations.

I’m with ING and Westpac who are both listed as providing PayID. However, Westpac currently only offers PayID for personal accounts although they do claim they’re bringing it to business accounts…

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