The float never leaves the banking system.

The construct

Every layer of the rail runs through one banking arrangement: a sponsoring bank that holds the pool accounts, settles into the National Payment System and holds the float. The SommaRedde wallet needs one such bank. Every corporate wallet that graduates to its own licence needs one of its own, and the bank that sponsored it as a sub-wallet is the natural incumbent.

Why the rail is open, not closed

A closed loop is closed because participation is restricted. Ours is not, and a network that is early is not a network that is closed. The sponsoring bank is what makes it open: within a wallet, payments settle inside it in real time; between wallets, transfers ride the bank's own instant rails. Value moves in and out through the national payment system like any other bank-held money.

What the bank gains

Deposits that do not exist in the banking system yet, because the informal economy's cash circulates outside it. Volume from cash-intensive corporate clients whose takings never touch a bank rail until they are deposited. First call on every graduating wallet.

And a pipeline of future customers: the consumer and merchant apps serve the unbanked and underbanked, and as those users move into the formal economy they look for a bank from inside a system that bank already supports, with a transaction history behind them.

What we ask of a sponsoring bank

Ring-fenced pool account custody aligned to the Reserve Bank's e-money framework; sponsored participation into the National Payment System for the wallets; commercial terms on the float; agreed know-your-customer standards; account structures that support wallet graduation; and a decision timeline that matches a four-to-six-month implementation.