Real-time funds transfers between bank accounts, even from different institutions, will be made possible from January next year thanks to a billion-dollar infrastructure upgrade.

Following a 2012 review of Australia's payment systems, customers of the big four banks and about 50 smaller institutions will be automatically able to use instant payments from around Australia Day.

Adrian Lovney, chief executive of the New Payments Platform, an initiative set up by 13 Australian banks in 2014 to build the technology, said transfers will no longer have to wait over weekends.

"The core benefit at launch is the faster receipt of money in real time, and that will happen 24/7, 365 days a year," Mr Lovney said.

"Through the weekend, public holidays, at 3 o'clock in the morning — funds will arrive in the recipient's bank account in about 30 to 45 seconds."

Mr Lovney said he expects four out of every five bank accounts will be able to take advantage of the change by late January, with just some international and smaller banks to come in later.

He said while we may all be used to the old way of batch processing bank transfers, consumers increasingly judge services based on the immediacy of their benefits.

"They expect things to happen instantly, with a mobile phone, in a 24/7 digital economy — they expect if I'm going to send you money that you'll receive it today and not next week," he said.

But while annoying to some, the delay of sometimes a few days does allow anti-fraud analysts more time to catch and stop fraudulent transactions.

Mr Lovney said banks will need to ensure their existing fraud mechanisms are up to the task.

"What we might see is people using the speed of the system to rip people off or to con people or to trick people in ways that they do today, but faster," he said.

"We've been hearing a lot recently about the ATO scams — people ringing up pretending to be from the Tax Office — or we also see lots of activity around romance scams."

Artificial intelligence offers greater security for banks

But with the benefits of faster transactions between banks comes a greater temptation for fraudsters to exploit the system.

US-based Capital One offers a glimpse of the future for Australian banks, where artificial intelligence and machine learning can help them stay on top of suspicious transactions.

"As we're monitoring customer transactions, [we see if] a card has double-swiped, or maybe they left an unusually large tip, or perhaps a recurring bill [increase]," chief information officer Rob Alexander said.

"We're able to give them a notification in real-time, and therefore the customer is able to take some action and resolve that."

The ability to tap into integrate voice commands for real-time technology also opens up benefits for consumers.

"What did I spend at Starbucks last month? If you think about it, [it's] actually a complex thing to answer, because you've got to go through your statement," Mr Alexander said.

"In real-time, we can do that calculation for you and immediately tell you what you spent at Starbucks last month."