US payments associations launch Center for Payments

Eleven payments associations representing over 10,000 financial institution members, businesses and stakeholders, have announced a programme to advance the payments industry through joint development of market intelligence and thought leadership.

The participating payment associations are ePayResources, EPCOR, MACHA, NEACH, PaymentsFirst, Shazam, Southern Financial Exchange, The Clearing House Payments Authority, UMACHA, WACHA and WesPay.

The Center for Payments was formed with the common belief that dynamic changes in the payments industry requires improved insights to aid payment systems participants and help inform decisions to evolve and grow payments capabilities. By developing and gathering market intelligence, the Center for Payments will generate actionable data for decision-making that can be used by all members of the participating associations, especially small and mid-sized financial institutions that may not have access to this type of market intelligence.

In addition to market intelligence, The Center for Payments will actively engage with industry partners and rule-making organizations, such as ECCHO, The Clearing House, the Federal Reserve Financial Services, NACHA and others, to inform the direction of payments changes and to jointly develop the staffs of the participating associations to assure that these associations maintain their reputation as experts across existing and emerging payment systems.

The Center for Payments is finalising the results of its first nationwide market study examining payments strategy and the intersection of faster payments in the US. The results will be announced on 6 May 2019. Similar studies are being considered in the future.