Recently, I had the honor of attending the fall 2018 Payments Innovation Alliance meeting held in Washington, DC. It was a great trip in our beautiful nation’s capital! The Payments Innovation Alliance provides a single membership program that brings together content and focus across all payment areas. Through active project teams, task forces and industry groups, members collaborate to influence existing and emerging payment trends and facilitate change and support innovation.
The Alliance currently has four separate initiatives that represent its work in shaping the future of payments. The four project teams are the Cybersecurity Response Team, the ISO 20022 Toolkit Project Team, the Faster Payments Playbook Project Team and the ACH Quick Start Guide Project Team, which I am a proud member of.
The Cybersecurity Response Team’s goal is to draft “best practices” in a collaborative effort for the industry. The team will begin with Corporate Account Take Over (CATO) incidents. During the update presentation, it was stated that these types of attacks are on the rise in 2018. Corporations, Financial Institutions, central banks and electronic payment systems are not immune. The team is hoping to address four key areas of focus: Prevention, Reaction to Incident, Recovery and Post-Incident System Enhancements.
The ISO 20022 Toolkit Project Team presented findings from a survey that it conducted. The team members posed questions regarding what they want the outcome of the project team to be and what material would be the most beneficial. It was an interesting session and I look forward to seeing the final product.
The Faster Payments Playbook Project Team’s mission is to develop tools for clarity on faster payments. As you may know, Faster Payments is a growing area within the banking industry. This is much to understand with this new area of focus. This is a very active group of individuals committed to delivering a final product that will be easy to use and concise.
The ACH Quick Start Guide Project Team is the team that I am delighted to be a part of. We are starting with a B2B (Business to Business) use case model. Essentially, the tool we are developing will assist business customers with tutorials on payments. There is still much to be done on this project. I will keep our NEACH membership updated as we progress with this project team.
I thoroughly enjoyed my time at the 2018 Payments Innovation Alliance Meeting. Washington, D.C., is a beautiful city, full of culture and history. It was great to see so many industry experts all in one place with the common goal of facilitating positive change and supporting innovation in the financial industry. I am honored to be associated with this awesome group of industry leaders.