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The Federal Reserve's faster payments steering committee is starting to put together timelines, processes and criteria - which will address security - as the Fed continues to pursue payments system changes it believes are needed to catch up with other countries.

Fed Board Gov. Jerome Powell discussed the project during a recent address before the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City Conference, "The Puzzle of Payments Security: Fitting the Pieces Together to Protect the Retail Payments System." It also has a secure payments task force and has a related steering committee set to meet for the first time next month.

"Momentum is growing," Powell said. "By the end of next year, the plan is for the faster payments task force, with input from the secure payments task force, to have laid out its detailed thinking on the most effective approaches for implementing faster payments in the United States. Then, it will be up to the industry to implement these approaches."

Carrie Hunt, NAFCU's senior vice president of government affairs and general counsel, serves on both of the Fed's payment task forces and participates in their activities and discussions on payments system reform. NAFCU has maintained that the Fed should not dictate payments system changes but should allow industry to determine those.

The Fed is taking comments from the public on its proposed changes to Federal Reserve Banks' same-day automated clearing house services in response to an approved final rule from NACHA – The Electronic Payments Association. NAFCU will submit comments, which are due July 2.