16 ways to ignite innovation in payments

16 ways to ignite innovation in payments

There is plenty happening behind the scenes in payments. To keep you abreast of 16 of the most important things going on, we’ve pulled together this list of consultations, white papers, green papers and initiatives.

The Payments Association is involved with influencing many of them, driven from within Payments Association’s Project Leadership run by Suresh Vaghjiani from GPS, with Katy Lawrie from Allpay coordinating the Payments Association’s Regulator Initiative.

If you want to help, contribute or make your voice heard, just contact Carina. We need additional resources to help make the voice of our emerging payments community heard.

1. The PSR is consulting the industry following publication of the initial findings from its market review into the ownership and competitiveness of infrastructure provision. The Payments Association will be submitting a formal response to what we see as a the most fundamental change in the UK payments infrastructure for years
2. BACS has published an excellent White Paper on widening access and choice to its payment services, and running a consultation; Keri and I met them this week and they are open for business with the Payments Association’s members. Be sure to submit a response to this important consultation. Richard Ransom from Bottomline is helping us with this
3. The Bank of England is producing a world-leading Blueprint for Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) and the settlement infrastructure by the end of 2016; Payments Association is contributing before the full consultation commences, because this could result in the biggest change to the structure of settlement arrangements in 25 years. Rich Wagner from APS and Andrea Dunlop from Paysafe Group are helping us with this
4. The EU’s banking and finance group has issued a Green Paper on Retail Financial Services and seeks input; Payments Association is contributing to this far-reaching consultation with the help of Kevin McAdam from Allpay
5. FCA has a consultation supporting the development and adoption of RegTech; Payments Association has responded with the help of Peter Howitt from Ramparts and Julian Brand from PPS
6. Payments Association has published its White Paper – A Call for Fair and Equal Access for Fintech. It’s written by the CEO of APS and the Payments Association chairman, Rich Wagner, and is part of the Payments Association’s Project Rome
7. SWIFT has its Global Payments Innovation Initiative, to help make global payments faster, cheaper, more transparent, and more predictable
8. The Payments System Regulator is running a consultation on Draft Interchange Fee Regulation; Payments Association is responding
9. The Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2) is being published in the OJEU in January 2016 – working towards open APIs for consumer data
10. The European Banking Authority (EBA) has a consultation paper on the Draft Regulatory Technical Standards on the framework for cooperation and exchange of information between competent authorities for passport notifications, under PSD2
11. The EBA has a discussion paper on future Draft Regulatory Technical Standards on strong customer authentication and secure communication under the revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2)
12. The FCA has a Call for Input on the FCA’s approach to the current payment services regime in light of PSD2
13. In February there was an announcement by the Open Data Institute on the UK Open Banking Standard.
14. The Dutch Payments Association has a consultation on the requirements and design of an instant payments infrastructure – this is despite the Dutch Central Bank’s reluctance to license paytech companies at all

And it’s not just happening in Europe either:

     15. The US has commissioned Payments Association member Vocalink to help with its real time settlement service with The Clearing House

     16. Reserve Bank of India is inviting applications for Innovative Payment Solutions for its payment and settlements systems

You cannot be expected to contribute to all of these, and nor can the Payments Association. But together we can influence what is happening behind the scenes, and advance payments innovation for the benefit of all.

Tony Craddock

Director General, Payments Association

[email protected]

PS            Thanks to Brendan Jones for helping to pull this list together.