NAB has announced the release of a new property deposit and real estate payments platform that taps the New Payments Platform’s (NPP’s) fast payments rail.

The newly launched NAB Portal Pay promises real estate organisations and their customers a safer and near-real-time service to transfer, track and reconcile rental and sale deposit payments.

Designed to integrate into existing real estate software platforms, the payments portal, NAB said, will “reduce the complexities and administration burden traditionally associated with property sales and rental transactions”.

The solution provides an alternative to the increasingly outmoded bank cheque and direct deposit payments for property deposits. NAB boasts that, once the payment is initiated by a customer through the portal, real estate agents can expect to receive their property sales deposit “within minutes”.

The platform leverages NAB’s previously developed Pay by Bank solution, built with fintech Banked and utilising AP+’s PayTo infrastructure. Pay by Bank enables merchants to send PayTo Agreements to their customers and initiate payments and refunds according to these agreements.

Real estate organisations, using the PayTo-backed Portal Pay service, can thus request and receive payments at the time of a sale and receive instant confirmation of payments, with no need for Statutory Trust Account (STA) details.

NAB executive for business metro and specialised, Julie Rynski said the new portal brings what has long been an antiquated property payments process into the modern age.

“The Australian real estate market is a core part of the Australian economy, yet the payment systems and processes that service it, haven’t kept pace,” she said.

“We’re focused on delivering a more seamless end-to-end customer experience for property payments, backed by the strength and expertise of our wider NAB business banking network.”

Among the features of the platform include transaction management for real estate providers, and a ‘Tenant Portal’ for payers, enabling them to review payment history and schedule payments, and choose their payment methods.

Users of the Portal Pay will also gain access to NAB’s dedicated business suite, NAB Connect, with Portal Pay data fed directly into real estate agents’ existing business management software via a “safe and secure” API connection.

Rynski added: “Real estate agents, buyers and renters can expect a much more simplified user experience combined with state-of-the-art security features to facilitate fast, safe transacting.”