US Faster Payments Council reveals results from inaugural Faster Payments Barometer

The US Faster Payments Council (FPC) and Glenbrook, a payments consulting, education, and research company, have released results from the Faster Payments Barometer.

As part of its ongoing mission to understand, influence, and drive the industry toward a ubiquitous faster payments system, the FPC conducted the survey of payments system stakeholders to gauge their views on a variety of topics related to faster payments in the US.

The inaugural Faster Payments Barometer was widely circulated and received well over 700 responses from a broad array of payments stakeholder segments including financial institutions, core processors, payment network operators, business end users, acquirers, fintechs, and more. The survey was conducted from September 18 – October 6, 2019.

Journey to Faster Payments in the US

Overall, survey participants view the US as falling behind the rest of the world when it comes to faster payments adoption. Fifty-nine percent of survey respondents indicated that the US is not making “satisfactory progress toward faster payments adoption.” Reasons cited for the US being behind included “existing faster payments systems have not yet reached ubiquity and do not interoperate with one another” (53%), “high upfront costs and complexity to implement (resources, operational changes, staffing, etc.)” (48%), and “lack of common rules and standards” (35%). 

Industry Support for Interoperability

Survey respondents were asked how important it is to achieve interoperability across compatible faster payments systems in the US market with a large majority (95%) stating either “very important” (78%) or “somewhat important” (17%). Participants were also questioned on what the timeline for interoperability among faster payments systems should be—half of respondents (49%) thought interoperability should be attained in 1-4 years and 22% selected “as soon as FedNowSM is implemented.”

The Faster Payments Barometer further shows that participants in the payments industry generally agree on some other key aspects. When asked which attributes should define faster payments, 29% selected “directory/addressing service” with 68% of those respondents rating it as “very important” to their organisation. Additionally, a strong majority, 73%, felt that dispute resolution should be an inherent feature of a faster payments system.

Solving “Everyday” Pain Points

Results from the survey illustrate that faster payments are considered a way to improve payment systems’ usability. Participants were asked to select from 16 options which use case their organisation was currently most interested in for faster payments. “Bill payment” (59%), “person-to-person” (53%), and ecommerce (47%) rounded out the top three choices with “invoicing/supplier payments” and “transfers between accounts at different financial institutions” tied for fourth (44%).

In a final question, respondents were asked at what point do they think we are currently at in terms of implementing faster payments in the US. Almost 60% believe we are not making enough progress with half (50%) stating we are “gaining momentum” and 39% acknowledging we are “at the very beginning” of our journey.