Over many decades, technological innovation has not been new to money and payments. However, the rate, scope, and profundity of the current technological revolution point to the possibility of even more profound transformation in the future.

Today, I want to outline the efforts being made by the Bank of England to guarantee that these advancements will be safe and that we will be able to reap their benefits. I'll talk about how, when we look at the payments ecosystem as a whole, innovation in wholesale payments and the significance of bank-driven payments innovation are coming into sharper light.In addition to the work we've been doing on retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) and stablecoin regulation, we'll issue a Discussion Paper this summer to solicit feedback and participation from the private sector.

Looking back almost five years, Facebook and other partners suggested the Libra stablecoin, which sought to bring cutting-edge technologies from the crypto-asset ecosystem to global retail payments. That came as something of a surprise. In the UK, it served as a reminder that technological advancements in money and payments were far from finished, even while many individuals appeared to have a quick and easy experience with near-ubiquitous contactless card payments and new wallet apps like Apple Pay.

Interbank retail payment systems such as Swish in Sweden, Pix in Brazil, and the Unified Payments Interface in India are examples of systems that are currently in use worldwide and are used in conjunction with cards for retail payments, something that is not currently the case in the UK. Without using credit or debit cards, customers can pay merchants in-person or online directly from their bank accounts, which saves money for small businesses. Additionally, more and more people are transferring money between banks by simply utilizing a QR code or the recipient's telephone number.

Looking ahead, it seems that widespread, more fundamental technological transformation is imminent. Distributed ledger technology (DLT) and the possibility of atomic settlement and programmability, as demonstrated in crypto-asset markets, are technologies that fall under the general category of "tokenization" and have the potential to improve the functionality and efficiency of "real world" retail and wholesale payments. This innovation has the potential to significantly benefit consumers, businesses, economic activity, and growth, and it is important for our responsibility in preserving monetary and financial stability.

Our trials with the private sector and the London Center of the Bank for International Settlements’ Innovation Hub have already demonstrated how use cases for these technologies can embed payments more deeply, automatically, and efficiently into our increasingly digital lives in the context of retail payments—the high volume, low value payments made between households and businesses.

By allowing a buyer's cash to be reserved at the moment of purchase and automatically released to the seller only once physical delivery of the items is confirmed, such technologies can improve online buying. If customers feel more comfortable making purchases online from a new platform or merchant, this could lead to increased competition in the online retail space.In a similar vein—and maybe I'm pandering to the people who have driven great distances today—they might let commuters buy train tickets and receive an instant, automated refund in the event that the train is delayed, all without the need for additional paperwork or payment instructions. Automatic payment upon delivery in the context of supply chains may assist ease the recurring problem of small firms receiving payments after the due date.Finally, the cost of retail payments may be significantly decreased by these technologies. Remittances and other cross-border payments might now be made for a fraction of the then-average 6-7% cost thanks to Libra's proposal.Additionally, cheaper payments can make micropayments—that is, small amounts—more cost-effective. For instance, I might pay for the article I read instead of requiring a full newspaper subscription.

I've included some examples here, but they don't fully capture the potential of these technologies. Instead, they just serve to emphasize to me how much these technologies have the potential to enhance our daily lives.

Additionally, these technologies present a chance to improve wholesale payments and settlement, which are high-value, low-volume transactions between corporate and financial institutions. These transactions include settlements for financial market activity as well as interbank payments.

While financial market transactions are executed quickly these days, the clearing and settlement process is much slower because numerous parties—central securities depositories, central counterparties, custodians, banks, and end investors—need to update their records on a regular basis. Instead of each party keeping its own records, DLT enables a single, definitive database to be shared and updated instantaneously across all network members. In this way, it eliminates the need for manual reconciliation by giving every member of a network access to the same, single source of truth. This could enable quicker, more effective procedures with fewer middlemen and quicken the settlement of a transaction, all of which could lower the associated risks and expenses.Additionally, tokenization could make a larger range of financial assets more liquid (private assets, investment fund units, or even real estate), allowing a larger range of players to hold, trade, or even use them as collateral. It could also make these assets "fractionalized," allowing investors to hold a portion even if they are unable to afford the entire amount.

The Bank of England's contribution to innovative payments

Money is the train, and the payment system is the system of rails that carries that asset from sender to recipient. This is how I like to conceptualize money and payment systems. The Bank of England serves as both a regulator and a provider for each.

First, we supply our own trains and rails. We manage the Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) infrastructure, which is the mechanism used to move reserves between financial institutions, and we issue our own currency in the form of cash and central bank reserves. Together, these provide trust in money and payments, which supports monetary and financial stability. They are the backbone of the economy and financial system.They serve as a crucial base for innovation and service delivery by the private sector.

Second, we control the private sector's trains and rails, which include the money that commercial banks issue, the card schemes and interbank payment systems that allow for the transfer of that money, and the money itself.Again, by guaranteeing the security of this private sector activity, we hope to promote faith in money and payments, and consequently monetary and financial stability. By doing this, we encourage safe innovation.

The technological innovation that I have outlined necessitates that we anticipate what modifications to our roles as providers and regulators may be required. I would point out three causes for that.

Initially, a few of these technologies have the potential to lower financial system risks. For example, counterparty credit and settlement risks could be minimized or eliminated by combining the numerous post-trade clearing and settlement operations and middlemen into a potentially instantaneous smart contract. This may result in additional management issues (e.g., a reduction in the capacity to net transactions prior to settlement).However, it is evident that post-trade procedures in the financial markets are moving in the right way.

Second, we issue the safest form of money in the economy as the central bank, which is essential to monetary and financial stability. Therefore, in order to preserve the central bank's position as an anchor of confidence in various forms of money in the economy, we must make sure that it has the necessary functionality as technology develops and new players bring much-needed competition.

Third, emerging firms that expand swiftly outside of the regulatory framework could threaten a regulated financial system that isn't providing results for the real economy and financial market participants at the cutting edge. These actors could reach systemic scale very fast, posing hazards that are difficult to mitigate later on. This is a tendency that has been observed as technological innovation has affected other economic sectors.

Our efforts to innovate retail

Regulation of stablecoins
This latter aspect was sharply brought home to us by the 2019 Libra announcement. We faced the possibility that Facebook would utilize its network of more than two billion users at the time to promote the adoption of new DLT rails for the money to travel on as well as a new form of money for retail payments (a stablecoin). The regulatory structures that were in place at the time did not sufficiently address the threats on either front. And that implied that payments and faith in money would not be guaranteed.

Even though the Libra/Diem idea was abandoned, stablecoins may eventually be utilized widely for retail payments, maybe by leveraging the user bases of big businesses. With Paxos, PayPal introduced a dollar stablecoin last year. Additionally, Visa is testing the ability for merchants to accept payments in Circle's USD Coin in the US.

Therefore, while the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) recommended a regime for stablecoins more generally, we produced a Discussion Paper in November suggesting a regulatory framework for stablecoins used at systemic size in retail payments. in the footnote A variety of stakeholders in the banking, payments, and cryptocurrency industries, as well as academics and civil society, have provided us with insightful comments.

Our recommendations center on making sure the new train—the stablecoin—and the new rails—the mechanism that moves the stablecoins from payer to payee—meet public and our expectations regarding their level of security relative to those of the retail payment systems now in use (commercial bank money and interbank payment systems, respectively).

The financial resources that stablecoin issuers have to lessen the chance of failure and the resolution plans in place in the event that they do provide security, just like with commercial bank money. Stablecoins won't be able to have deposit insurance-style safeguards since there won't be a larger industry to split the costs with. Therefore, compared to commercial bank money, there will be stricter criteria for financial resources.We have suggested that 100% of the value of stablecoins used for systemic payments be derived from central bank deposits. Furthermore, stablecoin issuers would not be compensated because they would not be involved in lending or money market activities and would not be anticipated to influence the transmission of monetary policy.

Issuers of stablecoins would need to find alternative sources of income if they didn't receive any from the supporting assets. This might result from fees for using the payment rails themselves, as is now the case with interbank payment systems, which include card issuers.Alternatively, it might be accomplished by offering ancillary services, similar to how Open Banking companies currently give consumers services like budgeting tools based on access to payment data, without actually issuing money or providing payment rails. (At the risk of oversimplifying, these companies provide services to passengers through onboard concessions rather than the train or rail.) However, my main argument is that business models ought to be subject to the same banking regulations as banks if they are to provide a systemic payment method and generate income through maturity and liquidity transformation.

Several responses to the Discussion Paper stated that these criteria would put the business models of stablecoin issuers in jeopardy and may essentially forbid the usage of stablecoins on a systemic basis.Naturally, we will carefully review all of the comments that we have received. After that, we will continue to consult on a draft rulebook, always keeping in mind that the same risks in various business models must be handled in order to reach the same regulatory result.

Examining CBDC retail
We are investigating whether to provide new tokenized money ourselves, while simultaneously thinking about how to regulate it for retail payments made by the private sector. Because of this, the Bank of England and HM Treasury are debating whether or not to launch a retail CBDC in the UK, much like many other nations do.

In the UK, the percentage of retail transactions that use cash has already decreased from almost two thirds twenty years ago to 14% in 2022. Furthermore, the potential for big internet firms to issue financial securities might further undermine the use of central bank money in consumer payments. To be clear, as long as people want to use currency, we will continue to print banknotes. However, these patterns do cast doubt on the goals of the Bank of England and may call for action.

The public's capacity to trust in the value of money, irrespective of its form or issuer, and the ease with which different forms of money can be exchanged to achieve so-called homogeneity of money, are fundamental principles of monetary and financial stability.Our financial system and economy have been stabilized for millennia by widespread access to banknotes, bank regulation, and the availability of RTGS. This is because banknotes guarantee that various types of private money, such as bank deposits, may always be changed into publicly backed funds that are free from financial danger.

This uniformity of money has not yet been challenged by the decline in the use of cash. The likelihood that it will do so in the future is uncertain and difficult to estimate. However, this uncertainty—as well as the potential severity of the impact—is a key driving force behind our investigation of a retail CBDC.I genuinely think that the contribution that retail central bank money has brought to monetary and financial stability should not be overlooked when technological innovation occurs.

Additionally, there's a chance that new money issuers might make it more difficult for existing companies to offer wallets and other payment services (referred to as "walled gardens") or could issue money in a way that prevents users from transacting with other users on their platform. Since it could not always be simple to transfer this money into other forms of money, this could put the uniformity of money in jeopardy. Such dynamics would also put competition in the payments industry to the test. Of course, we've already seen in other economic sectors how difficult it can be to regulate competition in digital, highly networked marketplaces.

In light of this, we discussed a retail digital pound with HM Treasury last year and released our answer to the more than 50,000 comments we received in January.In the event that a digital pound is introduced, many people voiced valid worries about protecting their privacy and having control over how they spend their money.We consider these worries to be very important. In response, the Government promised to further consult before launching a digital pound and to present primary legislation to Parliament before doing so. Additionally, the control and privacy of consumers' digital pound payments would be ensured under that legislation.

 

I want to be clear: we haven't decided whether or not to introduce a digital pound. Yet it's wise to take preliminary steps to make sure the option to issue is available in case it's needed. For the next two years or more, we will be working on conducting a thorough and impartial evaluation of the costs and advantages of the proposed project, taking into account both operational and technical viability. In order to achieve that, we shall think more closely about the possible design of a digital pound, guided by technological trials and private sector proofs of concept. We'll keep having extensive conversations with outside parties. Most significantly, we will learn from the evolution of innovation in the broader payments sector.

In fact, the kind and scope of innovation in other retail money forms (namely, commercial bank money) as well as the potential evolution of our own wholesale payments infrastructure would be important considerations in any choice to move forward with a retail CBDC. For the remainder of this address, allow me to discuss both. Let me begin by discussing our efforts to foster innovation in wholesale payments and settlement, an area on which we're concentrating more and more.

Our heightened emphasis on broad innovation\

Agreement
As I mentioned earlier, tokenization might reduce the need for manual reconciliation and lengthy chains of intermediaries, which would speed up and improve the efficiency of post-trade financial market procedures. We are actively encouraging businesses to investigate these solutions as the financial market infrastructure (FMI) regulator.

Last year, new laws were established that allowed HM Treasury the authority to create "FMI sandboxes," which are areas where we change rules to let businesses test out new technology. The Bank of England and the FCA held consultations earlier this month regarding our strategy for the first of these sandboxes, the Digital Securities Sandbox. This will make it possible for the private sector to implement innovative technologies like DLT to set up real-world trading venues and settlement systems. We intend to carefully examine the input from our consultation before opening the sandbox to submissions this summer.

I want to draw attention to the "real world" component because I think the term "sandbox" undervalues the innovations we're doing in this area as regulators. These won't only be test projects or prototypes.Our goal is to create a sandbox that is used in a manner that is mostly similar to that of the traditional financial system for both sandbox participants and the digital securities housed within. Therefore, this is a really exciting chance for regulators and market players to learn about the potential advantages of new technology in a practical way while imposing restrictions to allow innovation to occur in a safe manner.

The Bank of England, FCA, and HM Treasury plan to learn from the activities of the enterprises within the sandbox during its five-year duration. Based on their findings, they hope to establish a new, permanent regulatory framework for the trading and settlement of digital securities. The government can do that rather rapidly since it has the means to do so.That is why the sandbox should be a tool for testing and subsequently integrating safe and long-lasting innovation rather than a "bridge to nowhere."

Cash
Money must go in the opposite direction from purchasers to sellers as securities do. Our premise is that settling wholesale transactions in central bank currency has definite advantages for financial stability. It allows for the clear fulfillment of obligations between parties and is the safest and most risk-free asset in the economy.

Naturally, a portion of wholesale transactions are now settled with commercial bank funds.Additionally, since resolution regimes have been established, central bank liquidity insurance has been increased, and bank regulation reforms have made commercial bank money a far safer asset than it was before the Global Financial Crisis (GFC).

However, there is a tail risk associated with an excessive amount of wholesale settlement in privately created funds. Interconnectedness between banks arises from holding money with one another to settle payments; this could intensify a banking crisis when banks withdraw wholesale deposits from one another, resulting in broader deleveraging and losses (dynamics that were evidently at work during the GFC).Furthermore, in a financial crisis, a payment system that settles in commercial bank currency would find it difficult to swiftly transition to central bank currency, which would hinder the economic activity that goes through it.

On the other hand, the settlement of wholesale transactions in central bank currency can operate as a stabilizing and reassuring anchor during tense times. At the Bank of England, we do not see a large enough shift away from central bank money settlement toward private settlement assets. Therefore, we must make sure that our wholesale payments infrastructure stays up with the advancements in trading, payment, and securities settlement technology.

Significant progress has already been made in updating the RTGS system in the UK. In order to provide more automated domestic and international payment processing, it now uses worldwide messaging standards for operation. It will switch to a more competent and resilient core settlement engine later this year, one that will eventually be able to operate almost constantly. Furthermore, we are examining the most effective ways to increase the number of financial institutions that have direct access to RTGS.

Currently, central bank currency cannot be used to settle tokenized securities transactions in the Digital Securities Sandbox. Instead, they would need to make use of assets that were issued privately for settlement, such tokenized bank deposits.

As a result, we are concentrating more on how to develop our wholesale infrastructure in a way that will enable tokenized transaction settlement and maintain the use of central bank money in wholesale payments.

In the present RTGS system, a new "omnibus" account has already been created to enable private sector payment systems employing DLT to provide settlement in a tokenized form of central bank currency. In fact, the first of these payment systems began operating at the end of the previous year, subject to restrictions set by the Bank of England.Going back to my train/rails metaphor, this kind of solution essentially lets the private sector provide a train that travels on privately run payment rails that employ cutting-edge DLT technology, all the while maintaining the safety of central bank money that is underpinned by a conventional centralised ledger.

More generally, by connecting the conventional centralized RTGS ledger to alternative ledgers, including those employing DLT, the Bank of England is investigating with the industry the advantages of expanding the revised RTGS system in the future to allow synchronised settlement in a range of assets.

Our Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) solution allows money to travel simultaneously with tokenized assets in financial market transactions.Alternatively, in foreign exchange transactions, funds in RTGS may flow simultaneously with funds on the distributed ledger of a different central bank. With the simultaneous transfer of funds and assets across several ledgers, known as "atomic settlement," a wider range of use cases can be successfully expanded by Delivery versus Payment or Payment vs Payment.

Indeed, we investigated how such synchronization might actually improve housing purchases in practice last year in a project with the BIS Innovation Hub. Fund transfers via RTGS may occur automatically concurrently with the digital title deed recording the shift in homeownership, obviating the necessity for expensive and hazardous chains of middlemen. (A "synchronization operator" oversaw the coordination of all of this.)which is comparable to controlling the train schedule such that assets and money go on separate rails at the same time (this is maybe pushing my analogy too far).

As this is going on, a few other central banks are experimenting with tokenizing their own currency, known as wholesale CBDCs, on an independent, distributed ledger.We are interested in comparing the various central bank infrastructure models, as well as any notable distinctions in the payment use cases that each model can accommodate.

Our evaluation of a retail CBDC will also take into account the development of wholesale payments, as both may contribute to the eventual unification of money in the UK.These days, payments between banks that settle across the central bank's accounts in reserves through RTGS maintain the equal value of money issued by various banks in addition to the ability to convert them one for one into cash. Similarly, this uniformity of money could be strengthened not only by retail CBDC but also by improving the Bank of England's wholesale payments infrastructure so that it can continue to play its crucial role in supporting settlement between these new forms of private money as the technology underlying privately issued money evolves (whether through tokenized bank deposits or regulated stablecoins).

Bank innovation in payments

I want to conclude by discussing the implications for commercial bank deposits, which currently facilitate the great majority of retail payments in the UK, of the upcoming wave of technological innovation in payments.

We don't want the central bank to be the exclusive player in the payments innovation space, as Andrew Bailey stated in his call to action at Mansion House last year. Along with our proposed framework for regulated stablecoins and our exploratory work on retail CBDC, we also want to push banks to think more creatively and, most importantly, take action in the payments innovation space.It must address both trains and rails: what interbank payment rails would be required to support this, as well as how tokenization might be applied to bank deposits to improve their functionality across the whole spectrum of retail payments use cases.

It is my firm belief that the digital revolution will affect the financial industry in the same manner that it has affected other economic sectors, if not more so. Given the potential advantages of increased payments capability for banks and their clients, as well as the risk of disintermediation by new competitors, it seems to me that banks (as the incumbents) face both a first-tier opportunity and a first-tier threat from payments innovation. I think that calls for immediate response.

The Bank of England will help this in our capacities as a regulator by outlining precise standards and as a supplier of the wholesale infrastructure that facilitates the final settlement of interbank payments. In order to improve payments efficiency and functionality, including cross-border payments, we are testing the latter with six other central banks, the Bank for International Settlements, and the private sector through "Project Agorá." This project will investigate how tokenized commercial bank deposits and tokenized wholesale central bank money could be integrated.

Before I wrap up, let me take a brief moment to discuss this global aspect. Central banks everywhere are dealing with issues that are comparable to the ones I've discussed today. Agorá and similar projects will enable us to combine our resources to address them.However, they will also make sure that we address them in a way that makes sense, contributes to lessening rather than increasing cross-border payment friction, and—most importantly—helps us understand the implications for the global monetary system should digital money result in more frictionless cross-border money holdings and payment flow. This is undoubtedly a topic for a speech some other time.

In summary
Improving the functionality of retail and wholesale payments in the UK is possible with the use of new technologies. After Facebook announced Libra in 2019, the Bank of England appropriately focused on creating regulatory frameworks that would allow stablecoins to be used safely for retail payments and on determining if a retail CBDC would eventually be required.

However, we are focusing more and more on how to effectively promote innovation in the financial markets and wholesale payments, particularly by updating the wholesale payments infrastructure of the Bank of England, as well as in the retail payment services provided by banks. We intend to outline our ideas in these areas in a Discussion Paper this summer because achieving that will include the private sector's cooperation and contribution. As we do so, we look forward to utilizing the knowledge and inventiveness of everyone in this room.

My gratitude goes out to Michael Yoganayagam for helping to compose these remarks.In addition, I am grateful to the following people for their helpful comments and input: Danny Walker, Cormac Sullivan, Andrew Bailey, Emma Butterworth, Diana Carrasco Vime, Victoria Cleland, Amy Lee, Sasha Mills, Ali Moussavi, David Rule, Danny Russell, Vicky Saporta, and Martin Arrowsmith.

In fact, my colleagues David Rule and Iain de Weymarn have written recently about the lessons that can be learned for today's financial innovations from the late seventeenth century, when paper money first started to circulate alongside silver coin in the UK. Fresh cash, fresh cash - Bank Underground

In his farewell speech as Deputy Governor for Financial Stability in October, my predecessor Jon Cunliffe stated, "Money and payments: a black ships' moment?" - Bank of England address by Jon Cunliffe.

In the UK, small businesses typically pay costs for accepting card payments that are about five times more than those of the larger stores, amounting to nearly 2% of the whole transaction value. Refer to Chart B.3. Is the digital pound a new means of payment for individuals and companies? Paper for Consultation (bankofengland.co.uk).

Project Rosalind: creating application programming interface prototypes for retail CBDC distribution (bis.org)

Time is Cash | Federation of Small Businesses (FSB)Quick payment and cash flow analysis - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) ; Opens in a new window

Unlocking the potential of tokenization in securities - UK Finance

The uniformity, or "singleness," of money (we can be sure that our money, whether it be in bank accounts, notes, coins, etc., has the same value everywhere we keep it) and "finality of settlement," (we can be sure that when we pay for something, it has truly been paid for) are two key pillars Andrew Bailey outlined in his Mansion House speech last year. Andrew Bailey's speech from Monday, July 10, 2023, at the Financial and Professional Services Dinner (bankofengland.co.uk)

As part of its goal for financial stability, the Bank of England in the UK oversees systemic payment networks and the systemic service providers that support them.In order to advance innovation, competition, and user interests, the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) also oversees payment systems in the United Kingdom.

Analysis of social media messages shows that the majority of Londoners oppose TfL's plan to outlaw Uber | London Evening Standard | Evening Standard

Diem was the new name for Libra in December 2020.

Bank of England and the FCA release suggestions for regulating stablecoins.

Policy and Guidance for UK Payment Markets in 2023 | UK Finance

The Digital Competition Expert Panel's report, Unlocking Digital Competition, is available on GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).

In response to the digital pound survey, the Bank of England and HM Treasury

Today's digital payment methods generate personal data as well, and access to that data by the public and private sectors is tightly regulated by law.

Joint consultation and draft guidelines on the Digital Securities Sandbox are released by the Bank of England and the FCA.

Assuming participants have finished the necessary assessments and interact with managers.

This is caused by a number of factors, such as the fact that certain businesses have cost-effective agreements with private settlement banks or do not have access to the central bank balance sheet. Having said that, we anticipate that the obstacles to direct access to the UK wholesale payment system CHAPS (such as the cost of the necessary technological infrastructure) will continue to decline. As a result, the Bank of England is examining whether or not to expand the list of financial institutions that have access to RTGS. Examining RTGS account access for settlement |

Listen to Victoria Cleland's address at the Bank of England about the Real Time Gross Settlement service as an open platform to spur innovation.

Policy for omnibus accounts in RTGS is published by the Bank of England | Bank of England

As part of the RTGS Future Roadmap, synchronization is one of the top priorities for additional development after the new settlement engine and core ledger go online later this year. We are now collaborating closely with industry to evaluate business cases and specify the high level design of features that are prioritized, after which we will choose which features to deploy sequentially. RTGS's Future Roadmap | Bank of England

Project Meridian: utilizing synchronization to innovate transactions (bis.org)

The Monetary Authority of Singapore, the Reserve Bank of India, the Central Bank of Brazil, the Banque de France, the Swiss National Bank, and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority are a few examples.

Strong regulatory frameworks that protect private money issuers—ensuring that banks are strong enough to consistently fulfill their pledge to turn deposits into cash on a one-for-one basis—also contribute to the uniformity of money.

Andrew Bailey's speech from Monday, July 10, 2023, at the Financial and Professional Services Dinner (bankofengland.co.uk)

David Bailey, Nathanaël Benjamin, and Vicky Saporta's letter on "Innovations in the use of deposits, e-money, and regulated stablecoins by deposit-takers" | Bank of England

Central banks and the banking industry launch Project Agorá, a significant initiative to investigate the tokenization of cross-border payments (bis.org)

The G20 is coordinating efforts to improve cross-border payments, and the Bank of England is intimately involved in these efforts. Financial Stability Board (fsb.org): G20 Roadmap for Increasing Cross-Border Payments: Consolidated Progress Report for 2023

Additionally, this will help HM Treasury in its efforts to outline a National Payments Vision this year.