FPC Work Group Interest Forms

The FPC will focus on collaborative problem-solving to address the issues that are currently inhibiting faster payments ubiquity. Below are eight work groups the FPC has identified as its current priority focus areas. Please indicate one or more work groups that you or your organization’s delegate with relevant expertise would like to join. Work group members can expect to participate in monthly meetings, contribute to planning and execution of work products, and provide periodic progress reports to the FPC Board, the broader FPC membership, and external payments stakeholders. Expected time commitment for participating in a work group is 8-10 hours per month in addition to semiannual in-person FPC member meetings.

Secure Instant & Immediate Payment APIs
Work Group Charter

Mission & Scope

Develop guidelines and best practices for the use of secure APIs for enrolling/onboarding users and for the initiation of instant and immediate payments, regardless of the network used.

Objectives & Goals

  • Enhance the industry's understanding of APIs and how APIs are used in onboarding/enrollment and the initiation of payments in the United States and in other markets.
  • Build understanding of various stakeholder perspectives and how secure instant and immediate payments APIs could meet the needs, and desires of relevant stakeholders.
  • Identify best practices by examining existing implementations of enrollment/onboarding APIs and payment initiation APIs.
  • Provide industry guidelines on the development and use of secure APIs for enrollment/onboarding and initiating instant and immediate payments.

Deliverables

  1.   Inventory of APIs in support of instant payments as categorized by functionality and segmented by channel.
    a.    List of existing industry efforts regarding payments APIs to ensure the work group’s efforts are sufficiently differentiated in terms of both content and participants from other efforts.
    b.    Stakeholder Survey to validate stakeholder requirements by industry.
    c.    A list of business processes that can be built into the APIs to streamline processes and achieve greater efficiency and safety.
  2.   Industry best practices for APIs technical security including taxonomy of technical interfaces, data protection and secure coding. 
    a.    Review of EU Open Banking Initiative and lessons learned for U.S. implementation.
  3.  Publish guidelines on the use of secure APIs for onboarding/enrollment and initiating instant and immediate payments.

Membership Criteria

Participants should bring either the relevant perspectives regarding the needs and desires of their organization as well as the authority to speak on behalf of their organization. Additionally, the work group will require members with strong technical knowledge regarding the development of payments APIs and members with strong technical knowledge regarding the message specifications, data elements, etc. required to transact on all instant payments networks.


    

Education and Awareness Signup Form

Mission & Scope

Develop an educational and awareness program to foster better understanding of faster payments and confidence among providers and users, ultimately driving adoption and transaction volumes toward the industry goal of ubiquity.

Objectives & Goals

The work group will determine the best method to develop a cross-solution education and awareness program that aligns with the FPC's higher level strategies and priorities. 

This effort will include surveying existing educational materials according to audience (consumer and business end-users, financial institutions, other service providers, etc.) to identify gaps and opportunities for faster payments information; determining opportunities for collaboration/partnerships with existing organizations; establishing a continuous assessment to ensure education and awareness materials are produced in an efficient manner; reaching the intended audiences; and helping reduce market misperceptions/confusion and drive adoption of faster payments. 

Deliverables & Timeframes

  1. Integrate new Knowledge Center resources including Solution Providers data repository, Glossary of Terms, Use Cases and Frequently Asked Questions. (Q2 2021)
  2. Identify additional existing faster payments educational materials, industry guides, and other resources that expand on Phase 1 of the Faster Payments Knowledge Center. (Q1/Q2 2021)
    1. Develop and communicate topic ideas and potential speakers for 2021 Educational Town Hall Series Scheduling (Q1/Q2 2021) Conduct Town Hall Sessions (Q2/Q3 2021)
  3. Create new opportunities for collaboration and partnerships with trade or member organizationsand other FPC work groups to further advance education and awareness program. (Q3 2021)
  4. Create toolkits for FPC member organizations to communicate/educate on faster payments at conference venues, in op-ed opportunities, newsletters, articles, etc. (Q4 2021)

Fraud Information Sharing Signup Form

Mission & Scope

Works with existing fraud sharing forums to identify enhancements that will make the current information sharing processes more efficient and effective, with an aim towards fostering better user experiences, bolstering confidence and trust in faster payments, facilitating faster reaction times to address threats to the ecosystem.

Objectives & Goals

  • Determining the group’s work priorities and the best method for reporting output to members as well as to the industry in general, if applicable.
  • Determining what is meant by fraud information and determining the benefits of creating common definitions for fraud statistics to be used in reporting and education (e.g. attack rates, fraud losses, recovery rates). In addition to awareness of specific scams, fraud information could also include understanding of how the tactics work and sharing fraud prevention techniques.
  •  Surveying other fraud sharing forums to identify gaps and opportunities for collaboration.
  • Establishing any needed guidelines for the FPC’s role such as safe harbor type protections or limits of liability for sharing information.

Deliverables & Timeframes

  • Conduct a survey on faster payments fraud. Surveying both (1) fraud which has occured (thus learning from others' experiences) and (2) the perceotion of fraud in faster payments. (Q2 2021)
  • Produce a report summarizing the findings. (Q3 2021)
    • Publicly available White Paper for FIs, operators, processors, business end users.
    • Report Recommendations to address faults or gaps:
      • Types of fraud as identified through surveys, analysis of each, and recommendations.
      • Details of existing network operators' data/statistices/averages as to fraud attempted and fraud perpetrated, as well as information from other countries.
      • Lessons learned from other countries on emerging fraud patterns and what techniques worked to mitigate fraud.

Directory Models Signup Form

Mission & Scope

Engage stakeholders to assess friction points and establish best practices to support ubiquitous directory capabilities. Work with industry stakeholders to enable interoperability and leverage directories to promote the adoption of faster payments.

The Directory Models Work Group will focus on directories as they relate to faster payments consistent with the definitions accepted by the U.S. Faster Payments Council. Particularly, scope will be limited to schemes supporting push transactions between accounts with immediate (or at a minimum same day) funds availability per transaction.

Objectives & Goals

  • Gain consensus of the full group participants on this Work Group Charter.  Work with FPC members to ensure the broader membership has the opportunity to participate.  Identify and work with directly affected industry participants to ensure engaged participation in the Work Group.
  • Achieve diverse industry participation in the Work Group by ensuring participation of financial institutions, payment networks, faster payment network operators, users of faster payments, trade industry groups, regulators, and payments service providers.
  • Create a deliverable that articulate the impact to faster payments stakeholders which leverage the capabilities of an interoperable directory

Deliverables & Timeframes

  • Examine best practices related to optimizing directory models to reduce friction in the payment value chain and increase adoption of faster payments.
  • Assess current state of directory models and build out gap analysis that reflects what’s missing/could make them more broadly used.
  • Provide summary of directory implementations in other economies, and include lessons learned and best practices related to their respective experiences.
  • Review emerging faster payments that affect directory models (e.g., FedNow), assess impact on current models/platforms, engage SMEs in what it would take to achieve’ stakeholder adoption.

Membership Criteria
Open to any US Faster Payments Council member. The Work Group will make every effort to include those individuals involved in directory-type of businesses today.

Cross Border Payments Signup Form

Mission & Scope

Engage FPC member organizations currently working on cross-border payments. Gather information/input on various models and the variety of use cases where there is a need or desire by consumers and businesses for real time payments across borders. Review and coordinate with other FPC Work Groups to determine what is needed to align the currently disparate local faster payment systems such that the long-term goal of cross-border interoperability may be achieved.

Objectives & Goals

Identify what the industry needs to do in the cross-border space to create the environment necessary for faster cross-border payments.

  • Provide industry awareness on emerging faster payments cross-border initiatives and their potential impact on existing payment channels, correspondent relationships, and clearing and settlement finality.
  • Identify and prioritize use cases, user experience, and corridors to study and understand, assess different types of cross-border payments, and needs by consumers and businesses for faster cross-border payments.
  • The scope of our examination and work products will cover E2E process flows (data and funds), settlement models, and technical infrastructure, (laws/regs out of scope).
  • Review U.S. and global models that could potentially be put in place for real-time cross-border payments.
  • Identify strengths and gaps of current models or emerging options.
  • Identify challenges/issues in both inbound and outbound payments.
  • Identify lessons learned and barriers to resolve these challenges/issues.
  • Identify other working groups and global governing bodies that can be leveraged for input and action.

Deliverables & Timeframes

The Group's work will be done in phases with each phase building off the review and findings of the previous phase(s) through incremental industry updates.

       1. Review the current and emerging cross-border payment initiatives especially Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) models.

           a. Review the current CBDC studies and industry papers by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, the Federal Reserve Bank and The Clearing House.

          b. Identify areas of commonality and divergence in the different CBDC models and initiatives.

          c. Identify the opportunities and concerns posed by CBDC’s models being proposed and implemented.

       2. Provide recommendations to the FPC community on how to continually monitor new initiatives in cross border faster payments space such as CBDCs.

Membership Criteria

Technical Expertise preferred in managing, implementing, developing, or using cross border transactions, including ACH and debit/credit. Ability to synthesize research into summary findings. Open to representatives from all segments, but ideal to have representatives from financial institutions, technology providers, and end users, at a minimum.

QR Code Interface Signup Form

Mission & Scope

Describe how payment QR codes can facilitate adoption and usage of faster payments and provide considerations and recommended best practices for end users and financial institutions. Other potential methods for initiating payments are outside the scope of this work group.

Objectives & Goals

The work group will provide a brief review of payment QR codes and reference implementations. It will identify and describe faster payment use cases whose adoption may be improved by using QR Code as the initiator. The use case descriptions will be accompanied by recommendations for best practices and any related stakeholder considerations.

Deliverables

1.  Publish a report for all users of faster payments systems around the following subjects.

     a.  Introduction to QR codes for faster payments.

          i.  Brief review of payment QR codes.

          ii. Example implementations of payment QR codes.

     b.  Suggest with some justification which use cases may best assist in the adoption of faster payments in the U.S.

     c.  Describe the top use cases incorporating QR Code to facilitate faster payments.

         i.  Recommend best practices for use.

         ii. Provide stakeholder considerations, benefits, and impacts.
 

Financial Inclusion Work Group Signup Form

Mission & Scope

Provide a blueprint for leveraging faster payments to accelerate access to the financial system for unbanked and underserved Americans. Scope includes unbanked and underserved consumers as well as small businesses in the United States, with a focus on domestic payments.

Objectives & Goals

  • Examine current state of issues, concerns (e.g., costs, trust, security, anonymity), and needs of unbanked and underserved consumers and small businesses.
  • Identify opportunities and benefits for FPC members, and the industry as a whole, to serve this segment of the economy directly or indirectly through partners.
    • Identify the various stakeholder groups (e.g., FIs, payment technology providers, payment network operators, business end-users, and other players already serving this sector) that can be beneficiaries of the deliverables.
  • Inform relevant stakeholders regarding how faster payments adoption is part of a holistic approach to advancing financial inclusion in the United States by mitigating some or all of the issues, concerns, and needs of unbanked and underserved consumers and small businesses.

Deliverables & Timeframe

Create a detailed deliverable timeline data sources, orientation and resources for deliverables, and organization of subgroups. (Q1 2021)

  • Research issues, options, and opportunities within Work Group plus collaborate with other stakeholders Explore the reasons/barriers for consumers to be unbanked and/or underbanked. (Q2 2021)
    • Identify gaps in regulation that affect financial inclusion. 
    • Explore the role of identity as it relates to financial inclusion.
    • Explore the role and potential benefits and consequences of data aggregators and open banking as mechanisms for the facilitation of faster payments. 
    • Examine characteristics of a ubiquitous faster payment ecosystem inclusive and agnostic to the account types.
    • Draft a blueprint (white paper) that describes how faster payments adoption can advance financial inclusion in the United States by mitigating some or all of these issues.
  • Deliver a blueprint (white paper) for various audiences (FPC members, other industry players, public sector institutions, general public) that documents findings and recommendations for how faster payments can be part of a holistic approach to advancing financial inclusion to drive interest in the adoption of faster payments. (Q3 2021)
     

Real-Time Recurring Work Group Signup Form

Mission & Scope

Promote the development and adoption of real-time recurring payment solutions to be used by business end-users and financial institutions.  Included in the scope of this mission is the development of use cases relating to: ecommerce recurring, utility payments, investment account funding, other forms of recurring billing.  Excluded in this scope are adhoc one-time payments or payments where the customer is expected to initiate or be directly involved with each transaction.

Objectives & Goals

This work group will develop a real-time recurring workflow for faster payments that can be used in any applicable use case.  We will identify current approaches, applicable uses cases, best practices, and implementation guidance documentation.  Publishing the results that can be used by the faster payments community.

Deliverables & Timeframe

  1. Do a market review of current auto-pay and standing order products being offered and any rules or regulations that need to be taken into account. (Q1-Q2 2021)
  2. Determine the needed components of a real-time recurring workflow including auto-pay and pre-approval. (Q2 2021)
  3. Develop an auto-pay workflow that would include key industry stakeholders to complement the workflow requirements and would be adopted by business end users and financial institutions. (Q3 2021)
  4. Publish workflow and recommended best practices materials as a deliverable for all users of faster payments systems. (Q3 2021)