Download Article

RWP 15-03, June 2015

Consumers and businesses are increasingly expecting faster payments. While many countries have already developed or are in process of developing faster payments, the availability of these payments is fragmented in the United States. The recently released paper by the Federal Reserve encourages private sector participants to provide faster payment services. However, private-sector faster payments systems will face significant challenges in achieving public policy goals of ubiquity, safety, and efficiency unless system governance represents broad public interests. One way to better align private-sector interests with those of the public is for the Federal Reserve to influence governance of the private-sector systems through its leadership role.

JEL Classification: L5; L88; M14

Article Citation

  • Hayaski, Fumiko. 2015. “Faster Payments in the United States: How Can Private Sector Systems Achieve Public Policy Goals,” Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, working paper no. 15-03, June, available at External Linkhttps://doi.org/10.18651/RWP2015-03
  • Federal Reserve System. 2015. External LinkStrategies for Improving the U.S. Payment System, January. 
  • Summers, Bruce J., and Kirstin E. Wells. 2015. “Governance of Payment Systems: A Theoretical Framework and Cross-Country Comparison,” Journal of Financial Market Infrastructures, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 1-38.

Author

Fumiko Hayashi

Senior Policy Advisor

Fumiko Hayashi is a Senior Policy Advisor specializing in payments in the Economic Research Department at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. Since joining the Federal Reser…