What is Osko/PayID?

You have most likely come upon PayID or Osko in your day to day life, be it purchasing something from Facebook Marketplace, paying invoices or sending a friend money via bank transfer, but what is it?

Osko is a instant transfer system setup by the same company that created BPAY. It is a service offered by most Australian banks to allow fast and easy transfers between users. By utilising PayID in combination with Osko, you can provide an easy to remember piece of identification, such as your mobile number, and other users can pay you instantly using Osko and your PayID.

Benefit for Australian Businesses

For many decades, Australian businesses have relied on bank transfers to send and receive money. Bank transfers are typically slow to process and have little in the way of confirmation or security. This has resulted in millions of dollars in scams and otherwise fraudulent activity. Have you ever mistyped someone’s bank account information, only to have the money returned a few days later along with a fee for incorrect details? Or worse, accidentally deposited into an unknown person’s account and had to call the banks to rectify this? We have seen many companies fall victim to this by intercepting or otherwise convincing a company to change their bank account details to a new account only to discover it was a scam account, and in some cases lose hundreds of thousands of dollars.

By setting up a PayID, you give your clients and customers a way to pay you with a verification stage that states who you are before they proceed. This also applies for your suppliers that have PayID configured, you can use that information to pay them and have confirmation they are who they say. Better yet, this money is transferred instantly via Osko.

Steps to Start Using PayID

Most banks will allow you to use a variety of PayID methods, such as phone number, email address or traditional BSB and account number. In fact, many banks have enabled Osko without a PayID already.

In the business world, bank transfers are still the norm, but I hope that we will see an uptake in businesses setting up and using PayID to ensure safer and faster payments throughout Australia.

To start using PayID, contact your bank to enquire as to the process and how to link your unique identifiers, such as phone or email address, then provide your customers with this information on your invoices.