New Payments Platform Australia (NPPA) has accused fintech Ripple of improper use of its brand and the PayID trademark and of violating consumer protection laws. The company filed suit in the Federal Court of New South Wales.
The plaintiff claims that the PayID brand was launched in February 2018, and since then the company has allocated AUD 3.3 million to its development (about $2.36 million).
In June 2020, Ripple launched the eponymous service in Australia as one of 40 members of the Open Payments Coalition. The initiative aims to create a global payments system based on simple and intuitive identifiers.
According to the lawsuit, three of the 40 consortium members are based in Australia — FlashFX, BTC Markets and Independent Reserve.
NPPA chief Adrian Lovney said there is evidence that the three aforementioned platforms ‘wrongly believed’ that there was a link between the organisation he leads and Ripple regarding the PayID trademark.
NPPA uses PayID to identify its service and account proxy servers, which are part of its interbank services. The service allows customers to create their own unique identifier, which can be linked to their financial institution by email address, mobile phone number, or government-issued business number.
NPPA says that 5 million Australians use its PayID, and the service is a key link in the NPP payment system, managed by the organisation.
Judge Stephen Burley ruled that NPPA may file similar claims against Ripple outside Australia.
NPPA was created by 13 of Australia’s leading financial institutions, including the Reserve Bank of Australia, ANZ Bank, Westpac and Commonwealth Bank. In 2020, 60 Australian banks used the service.
The ongoing case in which Ripple is accused of violating U.S. securities laws.
In April, the company and its head filed as plaintiffs against YouTube, accusing the video platform of harming its reputation and brand.
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