Dec. 12, 2023 – The U.S. Faster Payments Council (FPC), a membership organization devoted to advancing safe, easy-to-use faster payments in the United States, today published the Real-Time Payment Application Program Interfaces (APIs) report in its Faster Payments Knowledge Center. The FPC Secure Instant & Immediate Payment APIs Work Group (APIWG), sponsored by Trustly, a global leader in Open Banking Payments, developed the white paper aimed at identifying best practices for instant payment APIs.
The new FPC Real-Time Payments APIs report focuses on API connectivity between corporate originators and payment providers, such as financial institutions and third-party payment processors. It leverages international and domestic research, exploring commonalities for API usage worldwide and aligning them with stakeholder perspectives to derive best practices.
"Given their always-on, real-time nature, instant payments and APIs are the perfect marriage,” said Dean Nolan, Managing Director, Commercial Payments at SRM and FPC Secure Instant & Immediate Payment APIs Work Group Chair. “The best practices highlighted in the white paper provide a solid foundation for how best to deploy instant payments APIs. As they become more prevalent, instant payments APIs will help to accelerate adoption of instant payments in the U.S. market."
The paper highlights several key factors influencing the adoption of instant payments globally, including the effectiveness of instant payment APIs in fostering innovation. The maturity of these APIs, as observed in markets like the UK and Brazil, correlates with the level of Open Banking maturity.
"I want to thank the work group at the Faster Payments Council for pushing this important initiative,” said Moa Agrell, Sr. Banking Partnerships Manager at Trustly and Vice Chair of the APIs Work Group. “With APIs, the future of instant payments is bright, and I am excited to be a part of accelerating real-time payment adoption in the United States."
Based on extensive research and collaborative insights, the APIWG recommends key strategies for optimizing the performance and expansion of instant payment APIs in the United States. These encompass streamlining user accessibility through automated registration, fortifying security with minimum defined authentication standards, enhancing payment approval by incorporating additional data, expediting transaction initiation set-up with quick look-up directory utilities, and safeguarding all parties involved in the payment chain through the integration of embedded fraud, risk management, and sanction screening controls and tools.
"The transformative shifts in business models and payment ecosystems seen in other markets can be replicated in the United States by adopting the best practices for APIs outlined in this paper,” said FPC Executive Director Reed Luhtanen. “This new resource from our APIs Work Group is the latest example of how FPC members are working together to produce insights that will significantly shape the evolution of faster payments.”
The FPC prioritizes inclusion of diverse perspectives in tackling complex topics such as interoperability, identifying real-world solutions that can ease adoption of faster payments, managing security risks and fraud threats, addressing barriers to financial inclusion and cross-border payments, and more, as the organization paves the way toward a future of faster payments for all.
For more information on the FPC, its current work efforts or to join, visit FasterPaymentsCouncil.org.
Contact:
Elizabeth Grice
U.S. Faster Payments Council
720-737-7368
egrice@fasterpaymentscouncil.org
About the U.S. Faster Payments Council (FPC)
The FPC is an industry-led membership organization whose vision is a world-class payment system where Americans can safely and securely pay anyone, anywhere, at any time and with near-immediate funds availability. By design, the FPC encourages a diverse range of perspectives and is open to all stakeholders in the U.S. payment system. Guided by principles of fairness, inclusiveness, flexibility and transparency, the FPC uses collaborative, problem-solving approaches to resolve the issues that are inhibiting broad faster payments adoption in this country. For more information, please visit FasterPaymentsCouncil.org.