The
U.S. Faster Payments Council (FPC), a membership organization devoted to advancing faster payments in the United States, today announced it has launched two new FPC Work Groups:
Financial Inclusion and
Real-Time Recurring. The newest work groups are in addition to the FPC’s wide range of workstreams on faster payments topics such as education and awareness, cross border payments, fraud, QR codes, regulatory, and directory models.
The Financial Inclusion Work Group will create a blueprint for leveraging faster payments to accelerate access to the financial system for unbanked and underserved Americans. The group will examine the current state of issues, concerns, and needs of unbanked and underserved consumers and small businesses, in order to develop and inform the industry on a holistic approach to better serve this segment of the economy.
"Faster payments stand to offer people the ability to manage their money, track their balances, and make payments like rent and utilities in real time,” said Adam Rust, senior policy advisor at the National Community Reinvestment Coalition. “This capability is essential for those households living paycheck to paycheck who need to make payments immediately to avoid fees and other penalties later. But faster is not always better, so we need to get strong consumer protections in place to prevent fraud, loss, and abusive practices."
The Real-Time Recurring Work Group will promote the development and adoption of real-time recurring payment solutions to be used by business end users and financial institutions. The group plans to develop a real-time recurring workflow for faster payments by identifying current approaches, applicable use cases, best practices, and guidance for implementation.
“As people increasingly look for digital solutions and choice in payment rails to meet their needs, it’s imperative to examine the current issues and barriers to the adoption of faster payments,” said Ron Shultz, executive vice president, New Payment Flows, North America at Mastercard. “The FPC’s two new work groups will play an important role in helping to advance faster payments in the United States through its commitment to increasing access to our payments system and developing payments products that are faster, more user-friendly, and convenient.”
The ideas for new FPC Work Groups are brought forward by FPC members from across the payments ecosystem. Over the course of the last year, the FPC and its Work Groups have undertaken many important projects to advance its mission of inclusive and ubiquitous faster payments in the United States.
“The list of use cases for real-time recurring payments has grown substantially in recent years. The need for payment solutions that are faster and more flexible for consumers and businesses alike has not been greater,” said Joshua Karoly, director of payments, Netflix. “From recurring ecommerce purchases to utility payments to investment account funding, there are many opportunities for real-time recurring payments to help make our lives easier.”
The FPC prioritizes industry collaboration in tackling complex topics such as interoperability among faster payments solutions, 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.
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