Banking Services
The Reserve Bank of Australia provides specialised banking services to the Australian Government and its agencies, other government instrumentalities, other central banks, and overseas official institutions.
The Reserve Bank provides a facility to the Australian Government that is used to manage a group of bank accounts, known as the Official Public Account (OPA) Group, the aggregate balance of which represents the Government's daily cash position. These banking arrangements include the consolidation of agency account balances held with transactional bankers into the OPA Group, the processing of daily payment instructions from the OPA to fund agency bank accounts, daily reporting and access to a strictly limited overdraft facility. The Department of Finance manages this facility on behalf of the Australian Government.
The Australian Office of Financial Management (AOFM) has responsibility for ensuring there are sufficient cash balances in the OPA Group to meet the Government's day-to-day spending commitments and for investing excess funds in approved investments. The Reserve Bank provides the AOFM with a cash management facility for the investment of the Commonwealth's cash with the Reserve Bank.
The Reserve Bank also provides transactional banking facilities to various Australian Government agencies. The main transactional banking services offered by the Bank include:
- bank account facilities;
- real-time New Payments Platform (NPP) services for payments and collections;
- processing and distribution of bulk electronic direct credit payment transactions, including welfare, Medicare rebates, salaries and vendor payments;
- other payment services, including BPAY, Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS), cheque and prepaid cards.
- various collection services, including direct credits and debits, RTGS, BPAY, eftpos, cheque, as well as internet and phone card based facilities;
- overseas payment and collection services, including direct entry, electronic funds transfer (wires) and cheque; and
- document delivery services where agencies can electronically request the Reserve Bank to issue cheques and electronic documents on their behalf.
Agencies can access these services and/or related reporting by using the Reserve Bank’s online banking service (RBAnet), API Gateway or a secure connectivity channel (e.g. internet link, GovLink, dedicated physical link) as applicable.