New and Renewed FPC Work Groups: Where the Work Happens


Reed Luhtanen, Executive Director, FPC

At the FPC, we’ve always stood behind the fact that the “Work Groups are Where It’s At.” They’re where the real work happens. They’re where Members come together around some of the most pressing faster payments topics to examine, discuss and solve for the challenges that slow progress. They’re where tangible ideas and resources are created to share with the industry to collectively ensure we continue to move forward and make good on our promise of ubiquitous faster payments for all in the United States.

That’s why we are so excited to announce the launch of our newest FPC Work Group: Secure Instant & Immediate Payment APIs. APIs, or application programming interfaces, provide for an automated way to deliver data or services, and essentially “connect” systems that don’t ordinarily talk to each other. This automation helps to reduce friction and pain points, speed transactions, and make new interactions and services possible. This creates value for both businesses and consumers, helping to meet current expectations for faster and more seamless transactions. So, APIs’ applicability and significance to faster payments advancement is not only clear, but actually of critical importance.

At the FPC, we recognize how important APIs will be to faster payments. And our Secure Instant & Immediate Payment APIs Work Group will tackle head on how to best leverage them to help make ubiquitous faster payments a reality. This Group has been chartered by the FPC Board of Directors to develop guidelines and best practices for the use of secure APIs for enrolling/onboarding users for instant and immediate payments and for initiating instant and immediate payments transactions, all the while building continued industry understanding of APIs and their use in faster payments and how they can support faster payments needs. To support its efforts, one of the Group’s first deliverables will be a list of existing industry efforts regarding payments APIs. This will help the Group gain a comprehensive understanding of current initiatives and serve as an educational tool for the industry and inform and guide ongoing Work Group efforts.

But our efforts are not just about creating new Work Groups based on trends or new developments; they are also about assessing initiatives to ensure we are aligning efforts based on the current state of faster payments.

To that end, we’ve also refined the mission and scope of the Directory Models Work Group and gained approval on the next phase of deliverables for the Cross Border Payments Work Group.

The Directory Models Work Group’s focus will shift to move beyond friction points to best practices to support directory capabilities and enable interoperability. This will require participation by diverse industry stakeholders, and the Group will ensure broad member participation, as well as input from key stakeholders impacted by and central to interoperability success.

The Cross Border Payments Work Group will provide industry awareness on emerging cross-border initiatives such as Central Bank Digital Currencies and their potential impact on cross-border faster payments. We encourage all FPC members interested to join the Work Group and participate in the next phase of deliverables.

The Work Groups really are where it’s at. They fuel the energy, passion, and momentum behind our mission. And they deliver on the engagement, resources, and solutions necessary to keep faster payments moving.

If you aren’t actively engaged in the FPC and our Work Groups, you are missing out on the historic opportunity to impact faster payments in the United States. With eight different FPC Work Groups, there is definitely a Group for you. I invite you to learn more at fasterpaymentscouncil.org/Work-Groups. Join today, if you are not a member, because this work will shape our collective faster payments future. And now’s the time to make an impact. 
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