Today, we are excited to announce the release of our Spring Progress Report (PDF), which outlines the important work we’ve completed and next steps toward achieving better, safer, faster payments for everyone.

As you’ll see in the Spring Progress Report, we had another busy year! Highlights and next steps of our payments improvement journey include:

• Published Next Steps in the Payments Improvement Journey (PDF), which introduced the next phase of work originally detailed in Strategies for Improving the U.S. Payment System (PDF)

Speed

• Accomplishment: Published the Faster Payments Task Force’s final report, The U.S. Path to Faster Payments (Off-site), which includes the challenges and opportunities for achieving faster payments in the United States and the task force’s recommendations and suggested next steps
• What’s Next: Facilitate stakeholder feedback on the Governance Framework Formation Team’s proposed faster payments governance framework

Security

• Accomplishment: Published the Secure Payments Task Force’s Information Sharing Data Sources (Off-site) and Payment Lifecycles and Security Profiles (Off-site)
• What’s Next: Conduct a Fed-sponsored study designed to inform industry security improvement efforts and analyze payment system security vulnerabilities and the costs and benefits of various approaches to mitigate them

Efficiency

• Accomplishments:
  • Promoted the Business Payments Coalition (Off-site) Small Business Payments Toolkit (PDF), Volume Three, leading to over 35,000 downloads since its publication in April 2017
  • Launched the Fedwire^® Funds Service ISO 20022 Implementation Center (Off-site) resource page
• What’s Next:
  • Facilitate Business Payments Coalition efforts to assess the benefits and feasibility of adopting an electronic invoice interoperability framework for the U.S. market
  • Continue industry stakeholder outreach, education, and dialogue that promotes ISO 20022 for payment systems

International

• Accomplishment: Continued ongoing education and outreach efforts regarding service enhancements and tool development geared at driving faster, safer, and more efficient payments, which included updates to the International Payments Resource Centers (Off-site)
• What’s Next: Advance progress on an update to the Fedwire^® Funds Service that expands the Federal Reserve Banks’ market practice to identify SWIFT’s^® Global Payments Innovation (GPI) bank transfers in the Fedwire Funds Service message format in early 2019

Collaboration

• Accomplishment: Facilitated the collaborative work efforts of the faster payments Governance Framework Formation Team, Secure Payments Task Force, Business Payments Coalition, and ISO 20022 Stakeholder Group
• What’s Next: Initiate enhanced programming, focused on flexibility and engagement, for the 4,000+ FedPayments Improvement Community members, covering initiatives such as the faster payments governance framework, the Secure Payments Task Force’s educational resources, electronic invoicing, B2B payments education, and the ISO 20022 migration plan

To see a detailed summary of these accomplishments and next steps, check out the full version of Spring Progress Report (PDF) and stay engaged in our payments improvement initiatives by joining the FedPayments Improvement Community.