As stated in the Faster Payments Task Force Charter, the mission of the task force is to “identify and evaluate alternative approaches for implementing safe, ubiquitous, faster payments capabilities in the United States.” This mission supports a key desired outcome identified in the Federal Reserve’s strategies paper, to achieve:
A ubiquitous, safe, faster electronic solution(s) for making a broad variety of business and personal payments, supported by a flexible and cost-effective means for payment clearing and settlement groups to settle their positions rapidly and with finality.
To accomplish this mission, the task force set out to achieve several important objectives:
- Represent diverse stakeholder views on future needs for safe, ubiquitous faster payments solutions.
- Assess alternative approaches for faster payments capabilities.
- Address other issues that arise through task force discussion that are deemed important to the successful development of effective approaches for implementing faster payment capabilities.
Initiatives to accomplish the task force’s objectives have centered on identifying desired attributes of effective faster payment models, soliciting proposals for faster payments solutions, assessing the ability of each solution to deliver these attributes, and identifying remaining challenges and opportunities for faster payments implementation.