Last week, we celebrated the first anniversary of Strategies for Improving the U.S. Payment System (PDF), a multi-faceted plan to enhance the speed, safety and efficiency of the U.S. payment system. Over the past year, we have seen the strategies and tactics included in the plan come to life through broad, unprecedented stakeholder collaboration. Of note, two stakeholder task forces, one focused on faster payments and the other focused on payment security, were formed with representation from all payments system stakeholders – a major milestone in the payments improvement initiative.
The Faster Payments Task Force, established to identify effective approaches for implementing safe, ubiquitous, faster payment capabilities, made progress towards this goal through the development and approval of the Faster Payments Effectiveness Criteria. Released today, these criteria describe stakeholder aspirations for a future faster payments system and provide guidance to the payments marketplace for developing and assessing faster payment solutions.
To support the strategy of reducing payment fraud and advancing the safety, security and resiliency of the payment system, we established the Secure Payments Task Force. This Task Force has identified payments security issues for action, including payment identity management, data protection, law and regulatory coordination and information-sharing to reduce payment risk and fraud. In addition, the Secure Payments Task Force contributed to development of the security-related Faster Payments Effectiveness Criteria.
Efforts to enhance payment system efficiency through work on standards, directories and business-to-business payments improvements have also been realized through collaboration. In joint efforts with industry stakeholders, we announced a high-level plan to implement ISO 20022 for U.S. wire transfer systems, designed a technical proof of concept for a business-to-business directory, and advanced plans to implement ubiquitous same-day ACH (Off-site).
Read our February 2016 Progress Report (Off-site) and hear more about the Federal Reserve’s vision for the future U.S. payment system in video interviews with Esther George (Off-site), President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City and executive sponsor of the payments improvement initiative, and Jerome Powell (Off-site), Federal Reserve Board Governor and co-chair of the initiative’s oversight committee.
It’s not too late to join our payments improvement efforts. Engage today to learn how you can add your voice to designing a faster, safer, more efficient payment system.