Reed Luhtanen, Executive Director, FPC
We were thrilled to continue the FPC’s momentum as we closed out March and now have our sights on April and beyond. On the heels of the February release of the 2025 Faster Payments Barometer, we have published two new industry resources geared toward advancing faster payments.
Digital Ledger Technology & Financial Inclusiveness
First, early this month, we released the Digital Assets and Digital Ledger Technology: A Pathway to Financial Inclusiveness report. The report, developed jointly by the Financial Inclusion and the Digital Assets work groups, explores how digital assets and Digital Ledger Technology (DLT) can support financial inclusion by overcoming eight select challenges: infrastructure, design, liquidity, cash access, error mitigation, trust, security, and interoperability. Through a SWOT analysis, the article highlights how overcoming these challenges with digital assets/DLT can pave the way for a more inclusive global financial ecosystem.
Take for instance the challenge of trust, the article sheds specific insights on the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats around this hurdle. According to the article, DLT that is designed securely and centered around the user can make it safe and reduce user fears around fraud and misuse.
With that as a basis, a strength of digital assets is that it can offer fraud prevention and inclusive, culturally relevant products. Alternatively, without access to the technology or proper infrastructure, some communities may struggle to participate or leverage DLT.
But there is an opportunity to engage providers that support multicultural needs and for cooperation between developed and underdeveloped countries to build trust and to overcome capability challenges. And it will be critical to solicit community stakeholder feedback to eliminate bias in any DLT design. By keeping these factors in mind with respect to trust, and others prescribed to address additional challenges, the potential of digital assets can be fully unlocked.
QR Code Usability for Faster Payments
Additionally, less than two weeks ago, the FPC published Overcoming Instant Payment QR Code Impediments to Adoption: Usability. This report, developed by the QR Code Interface Work Group, serves as a supplement to the Group’s previously released How QR Codes Address ‘the Last Mile’ Adoption of Faster Payments at the Point-of-Sale, which identified the five market drivers for implementation, including usability. The latest report provides a deep dive into the barriers of QR code adoption from a usability perspective, analyzing impediments such as legacy systems, integration complexity, and more.
Specifically, when looking at legacy systems, the report shows how they are an impediment to QR code development and usability. Today, many point-of-sale (POS) systems are configured for card payments and not compatible with QR-code based faster payments. And the expense to upgrade and implement the proper software changes can be considerable.
While this is challenging, the report maintains that changes are possible and when accomplished in conjunction with solutions to other barriers, can be instrumental in promoting the use of QR code technology for faster payments. With ease-of-use a near universal requirement by consumers and businesses alike, understanding how to navigate usability for QR codes will be critical to their widespread adoption.
Forthcoming Work Group Efforts
And the work continues. In early April, we will be releasing the How a Directory Service Accelerates Instant Payments: Consumer Bill Pay report. Developed by the Directory Models Work Group, the report will highlight the consumer bill payment use case to show how an open directory service could streamline the consumer bill pay workflow and accelerate the use of instant payments. So, be on the lookout for this new publication soon.
The first quarter has been a busy one, and these efforts and those planned for the coming year will be critical to the support and advancement of faster payments. So, we thank our Members and the larger industry for their commitment to the FPC and the future of faster payments. Know that we will be discussing these resources and other planned educational initiatives for 2025 at our upcoming Spring Member Meeting, taking place April 23-24 in San Diego, CA.. We look forward to furthering our work there and in other forums and opportunities throughout the spring and beyond.