The US 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.
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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 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.”
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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.”
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