Industry Perspective

Retail Payments Risk Forum: Catalyst for collaboration

August 2009

Emerging technologies and business models are bringing rapid and dynamic change to retail payments systems. Although these innovations offer greater efficiencies, they can also present new and unknown risks. To help address that challenge, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta (Off-site Link) has established the Retail Payments Risk Forum.

Formed in 2008, the Forum is designed to be a catalyst for collaboration among those seeking to improve the detection of emerging payment risks and fraud. The Forum facilitates collaboration among experts within the Federal Reserve and thought leaders in financial institutions, non-bank providers, users of payments services, regulatory agencies, law enforcement agencies and others. It accomplishes this by providing resources to research issues and sponsor dialogue on retail payments risks.

Advisory group provides industry perspective

The Forum has assembled an Advisory Group of experts from academia, financial institutions, industry organizations, corporations, federal and state law enforcement, federal regulatory agencies, the legal community and the Federal Reserve. Input from this group will help to focus the Forum’s areas for research and analysis, as well as provide a sounding board for ideas and connection to interested communities.

Among the Advisory Group members is a representative from the executive committee of the Regional Payments Associations (RPAs) (Off-site Link). Mary Gilmeister, president of WACHA (Off-site Link), is the RPA community representative to the Forum’s Advisory Group, with a charge of helping the Forum connect to RPAs and the communities they help represent.

Online presence encourages dialogue

The Retail Payments Risk Forum recently launched a blog called Portals and Rails (Off-site Link) to encourage ongoing dialogue on emerging issues in retail payments and to inform and guide the work of the Forum. Forum staff and guest experts will author posts weekly, while readers are encouraged to comment and help advance the discussion.

All those interested in retail payments risk issues and in following the work of the Forum are encouraged to Subscribe by Email (Off-site Link) or Subscribe by RSS (Off-site Link) to the articles posted to Portals and Rails.

Top of Page