News

In late 2017, the New Payments Platform (NPP) will launch in Australia with a number of financial institutions taking part. The NPP is a payments platform that has been developed by the payments industry governing body (APCA) and financial institutions to meet the evolving needs of our 24/7 digital economy. The NPP will enable real-time settlement of payments and will also simplify payments through an Addressing service, removing the need to remember BSB and Account information.

The ADF is taking a keen interest in the development and progress of the New Payments Platform and we have received detailed briefings from the Commonwealth Bank (CBA), our banking services partner, on their involvement with the NPP. Due to the structure of our banking services and the first release of the NPP being geared towards one off peer to peer payments, the ADF will not be joining up to the NPP when it initially launches. All payment methods that are currently used by our clients will continue unhindered and processing timeframes will not be impacted.

The ADF will continue to pro-actively discuss the NPP with CBA and monitor the progress of the platform as well as the second and third releases which may be beneficial for our clients.

If you have any questions regarding the NPP and the progress the ADF is making, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

We are pleased to announce that ADF Online has just been updated with a number of optimisations and improvements focused on the usability of the site. For more information you can view the release notes including the details of these changes.

This update has been carefully tested with all major web browsers. Please contact the ADF to let us know if you experience any issues with the new version of ADF Online.

We welcome your feedback on these changes, which can be submitted via the link shown after logging out of ADF Online.

As part of our program of continuous improvement, a further upgrade to ADF Online will follow later this year.

The ADF wishes to advise all customers to beware of an invoice email scam that is currently targeting Queensland businesses.

This scam involves scammers pretending to be legitimate suppliers advising changes to payment arrangements or bank account details held on file. The scammer will send an email which is disguised to appear almost identical to the legitimate suppliers’ email advising updated account information and potentially requesting payment.

More details on this scam including things to look out for and ways to protect yourself from being a victim of this scam can be found at https://www.scamwatch.gov.au/news/invoice-email-scam-now-targeting-australian-businesses

If you are concerned that you may have been a victim of this scam, please contact the ADF immediately.

The ADF has recently completed a business process re-engineering project with the CBA with regard to payments to ADF customer accounts.

Previously, the CBA would hold all transactions made to ADF customers each day, delivering to the ADF in one large batch overnight. The ADF would process these payments the next morning which meant that customers were receiving transactions up to a full day after they were received by the CBA.

From now on, the CBA will deliver customer transactions to the ADF several times throughout the day. The ADF will process them as they are received.

The benefits for ADF customers include:

• Positive impact on liquidity and cash flow;
• Merchant settlements processed the next day; and
• Easier reconciliations as a number of transactions will no longer have both an effective date and posted date, they will simply have a posted date.

The ADF is always looking for ways to improve our customers experience and would value any feedback you have on this improvement or other improvements you would like to see.

During a Qkr training session last year, the ADF and MasterCard received a suggestion from some schools for an online support forum where schools could share information about Qkr. In response we are pleased to announce the availability of a new Qkr Forum and invite Archdiocesan Development Fund customers to take part in the initial launch.

The address of the Qkr Forum is https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/qkrforum

To assist users getting started, we have added a guide entitled “Qkr Forum – Getting Started Guide” in the Resources and Guides section of our Documents and Forms page.

In December each year, all Archdiocesan agencies that are located in the St Stephen’s Cathedral precinct compete against each other to see who has the best Christmas decorations and the winner is awarded the Precinct Cup. It is a very competitive event with all agencies vying for the coveted trophy.

The judging criteria is always very strict with Theme, Message and Content making up 70% and Viewer Appeal making up the remaining 30%. The official judging is undertaken by Bishop Joe and his able assistant Vince Crisci.

The ADF decided on a Winter Wonderland theme for this year’s entry, with special focus being given to the First Christmas and the true Christmas message. A number of staff were tasked with the making of decorations and everyone contributed either helping to create or putting up the decorations under the supervision of Robyn Bowen. Robyn, who is usually very mild mannered, became quite focused on this project with all the staff put to work following her directions and ever-changing rearrangement of the display.

The judges attended the ADF first on judging day. They were walked through the display and were treated to homemade Dutch biscuits and other goodies. However, it was a nervous wait whilst they visited all other participants and until the announcement was finally made.

Later that afternoon, it was announced that the ADF was the winner! We are now in possession of the Precinct Cup Trophy until the end of 2017.

The ADF would like to thank all of our customers who have given us very positive feedback. It was a great team effort and the bonus being that finally after ten long years the ADF was successful in this precinct challenge.

On December 18 2016, Kevin Ross, the Chairman of the Archdiocesan Development Fund Board, received a papal honour in recognition of his professional and volunteer work in the Brisbane Archdiocese.

Mr Ross, who was appointed to the ADF Board in April 2004 and elected Chairman in September 2005 was invested in the ancient Pontifical Equestrian Order of St Gregory the Great and is now able to call himself a Knight of the Order of St Gregory.

The honour was still a shock to the married father of five who has been a member of the St John’s Wood The Gap Parish for 40 years.

“It’s blown me away,” Mr Ross said. “I’m sure other people would have told you the same thing, you do not feel worthy of such an honour and there’s so many other people that I think work much harder for the Church in carrying out the Gospel message than I do, right at the forefront of ministry and mission.
I hope to be seen that I’m but an example of what others are doing, just one, not the standout in any shape or form.”

Mr Ross has also participated on various committees over the past 24 years including appointments to Centacare, Brisbane Catholic Education, Archdiocesan Finance Council and work with Catholic health agencies.

The Board and Staff of the ADF would like to congratulate Mr Ross on his knighthood and thank him for is continued contribution to the ADF Board and the Brisbane Archdiocese.

It has come to the ADF’s attention that some customers, who recently installed new Albert Pi merchant terminals, have been given confusing information by the technicians at the time of installation and training.

The Albert Pi terminal supports the ability to process Mail Or Telephone Order (MOTO) payments, and Manual payments (if there is a problem with the card). When entering either a MOTO or Manual transaction, the operator will be prompted to enter a card code verification (CCV) number.

If the CCV number is available, it should be entered, as it can protect merchants against the use of fraudulent credit card details. However, please be aware that CCV is an optional field, and if the CCV value is not available, it can be left blank.

Some ADF customers have been told that this CCV field is becoming mandatory at the end of 2016. The ADF has enquired with the Commonwealth Bank and received confirmation that there are no current plans to make the CVV field mandatory. If this was to change in future, customers would be appropriately notified by the ADF or direct mail.

Please contact us if you have any questions or would like any further information.

All schools and colleges should now have received your 2017 Direct Debit pack including the updated Direct Debit Request form. You can commence using this form immediately. If any of your parents have already completed their DD form for the 2017 school year, you can forward these to the ADF for processing now, you don’t need to hold them at the school until next year. Please ensure you destroy any of the old Direct Debit Request forms and remove them from your website as they will no longer be accepted through the scanning process.

As outlined in our updated Direct Debit Information, Terms and Conditions booklet that was supplied as part of the 2017 Direct Debit pack, scanning and emailing of requests is our preferred method of submission. When scanning and emailing your Direct Debit Requests, we ask that the below guidelines be followed:

Separate request types into New, Alterations or Cancellations. Once forms are separated into these categories, all forms within that category can be scanned and emailed together. For example, a school may have 16 forms for processing, 10 new requests, 2 alterations and 4 cancellations. The school will scan all the new forms and email to directdebits@bne.catholic.net.au in the one email, then scan all the alterations and email in a second email, and finally scan all the cancellations and email in a third email.

Original Forms to be retained by the School

More detailed information about submitting direct debit forms can be found in the Direct Debit information, Terms and Conditions booklet. Alternatively you can contact the ADF on 07 3324 3777 or directdebits@bne.catholic.net.au

Update: This issue has now been resolved. Please don’t hesitate to contact the ADF if you have any questions or concerns.

Original Issue: Due to a technical issue at the CBA, we did not receive the client cheque file this morning. As a consequence, any cheques that were presented against your accounts yesterday had not been debited from your account. We asked that you please consider this when making payments and writing additional cheques on your account.