FEDERAL RESERVE: “A Federal Reserve-sponsored task force is preparing to unveil proposals by financial institutions, payments providers, trade groups and others to improve the decades-old U.S. systems for moving money electronically.
The faster payments task force, which is set to publish a summary report of the work on Friday [7-21-17], rated 16 proposals that met or exceeded predetermined criteria for speed and security, developed in consultation with the central bank, according to a copy viewed Thursday by The Wall Street Journal.
The task force includes more than 300 representatives taken from federal agencies, banks, consumer groups, technology firms and merchants such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Lyft Inc. Consulting firm McKinsey & Company helped assess the proposals, which come from industry groups such as The Clearing House, a payments operator owned by U.S. banks that is working with International Business Machines Corp. and Mastercard ’s VocaLink, and the Independent Community Bankers of America as well as payments software startups Dwolla Inc., nanoPay Corp. and Ripple.
The report caps a two-year effort to identify safer and speedier ways to transfer money digitally between bank accounts. The new approaches, many of which are designed to settle transfers in real time, could allow companies to collect funds or pay employees instantaneously and save money by bypassing intermediaries.”
-Katy Burne and Telis Demos, “Fed’s Task Force to Release Proposals to Improve Electronic Money Transfers,” The Wall Street Journal online, July 20, 2017 06:32pm