Reed Luhtanen, Executive Director, FPC
It’s hard to believe 2024 is almost over. What a year it’s been! With the support of Members and backing of the industry, the FPC has been able to accomplish so much this year.
From an FPC Community perspective, we’ve been able to increase membership to more than 195 active Members. And our Members can participate in as many as 12 Work Groups working to drive faster payments forward. In fact, we recently launched the Business Benefits of B2B Instant Payments Work Group, which aims to accelerate the adoption of instant payments for businesses by addressing key challenges and identifying best practices with B2B Instant Payments. And in early 2025, look for the Instant Payments Data Optimization Work Group that will officially kick off in January. This Group will work to establish and promote best practices for data accuracy in instant payments, ensuring a smooth and secure transition from traditional to instant payments.
Through the effort and production of our Work Groups, the FPC released 19 resources in 2024 to propel the future of faster payments. In collaboration with the Federal Reserve Financial Services, we launched the 2024 U.S. Instant Payments Adoption Quantitative Study, outlining use case drivers, adoption challenges, and industry expectations for instant payments by 2028. We also released From Potential to Profit: 5 Ways FIs Can Break Barriers to Benefit from Instant Payments with Finzly, which provides actionable insights for financial institutions to overcome challenges and fully leverage the opportunities presented by instant payments. Additionally, we released a host of other resources on topics ranging from QR codes and ISO 20022 to digital assets, and so much more. These resources help to provide critical industry information and education to support a thriving faster payments future. Access to these resources and more can be found in the FPC’s Faster Payments Knowledge Center.
In addition, we’ve hosted some important networking and education events, including two successful Member Meetings with more than 30 hours of education and networking, 100 Member and guest speakers, and 420 attendees. We also held four Town Hall events, covering RTP® and FedNow®, instant payments, the Accredited Faster Payments Professional (AFPP) Exam, and Operational Insights for Receiving Instant Payments. These efforts strive to educate Members on relevant issues to aid in faster payments understanding and opportunities for advancement.
While we prioritize Member engagement, broader industry outreach and education are also important. To that end, the FPC released 14 press releases in 2024, announcing new research, resources, FPC news, and more. This content enables us to share critical news and information to the broader payments ecosystem. Additionally, FPC staff, alongside FPC Members, delivered presentations at 15 industry events, including Nacha’s Smarter Faster Payments Conference, the Association for Financial Professionals (AFP) Annual Conference, the Payments Canada Summit, and others. Through these engagements, we not only deliver relevant information to the industry, but we also gather feedback and perspective from a wider audience, which is vital to driving faster payments adoption.
Even with all we’ve detailed, the aforementioned activities offer only a snapshot of what we’ve been able to achieve in 2024. It’s been a monumental year, and the gains we’ve made have truly been significant and impactful. We can’t wait to uncover what 2025 has to offer.
From all of us at the FPC, thank you for making 2024 such a successful year. We look forward to all that we’ll accomplish in 2025. In the meantime, we wish all of you a safe and happy holiday season. See you in the new year!