According to Lyle Elias, IPF Chairman and a founding director of ATMIA, the name change and restructuring of the initiative was based on payments industry feedback. "We reached out to the ATMIA membership and found that there was a consensus among them that the makeup of the group should be inclusive of all payments industry segments, not just ATM Acquirers," he said. "The mission and structure of the organization needs to be one of developing a framework for interoperable integrated payments that is inclusive of vertical industries, such as money services businesses, mobile operators, and merchant acquirers, as well as government regulators. Our aim is to develop standards and best practices for integrated payments, and to advocate for the critical role of cash in the electronic payments value chain."

Commenting on the change, Mike Lee, ATMIA's CEO, said, "Right now, the payments world is evolving faster than ever before and the ATM is at the core of many innovations such as the increasingly popular cardless ATM transactions. There are even BitCoin ATMs linking virtual wallets to hard cash. ATMIA is excited about this era of accelerated innovation and is delighted to be working with the new Integrated Payments Alliance to help shape standards, best practices, thought leadership and, where appropriate, interoperability to make sure these new types of alternative transactions at ATMs are secure, convenient, efficient and profitable for deployers."

Cash advocacy will be a central focus of the Integrated Payments Framework. David Tente, ATMIA USA Executive Director, explained: "Cash remains a very important part of the payment systems of every country around the globe - accounting for nearly half of all payments, in some instances. Even here in the U.S., cash payments as a percentage of GDP are projected to remain relatively constant for the next decade. Creation of the Integrated Payments Alliance will bring together all stakeholders in this new movement towarward cardless transactions, and help to facilitate the connection of cash to all other forms of payment."

ATMIA and the Integrated Payments Alliance will soon publish new best practices for Cardless ATM Transactions.

"The time is right for cardless transaction standards to be developed and adopted by the payments industry", Elias said, "In the past we've struggled with payments interoperability because of too many proprietary protocols and competing business models."

Elias and Lee are working on a white paper for the new Alliance which builds a futurological model for the former's concept of intermodal currency which he predicts will dominate the future of payments and money. "The future of payments is through developing 'Intermodal Money' systems, where all forms of value transfers are readily available, secure, reliable and instant," he says. "Intermodal Money will revolutionize payments the same as Intermodal Transportation revolutionized shipping and global commerce."