The joint consultative forum will provide a key exchange point and clearing-house between the global standard-setters who are driving and implementing the G20’s ambitious Roadmap on Enhancing Cross Border Payments, and key representative associations with global industry membership.

The forum will be led by and comprise representatives of financial institutions, payment service providers and technology firms, with the potential for official sector bodies to act as observers. While membership and leadership will be drawn from across the associations globally, the EPA Asia and the IIF will provide the joint Secretariat for this new forum.

Kicking off early next year, the forum will meet regularly to develop and provide industry feedback to the standard-setters and enable them to update on progress in their plans. As such, the forum will provide a key point of recruitment to this ambitious agenda. The forum will also provide a venue for policy or self-regulatory recommendations to be discussed.

“IIF and EPA have come together to lead this collaborative forum for the private sector, and respond to the objectives of G20, to lower the cost and enhance the speed, reliability and transparency of cross-border payments. For this initiative, EPA Asia is joining forces with the global EPA network to keep the global payments community involved,“ said John Ryan, Director, Emerging Payments Association Asia.

“EPA and IIF believe that the private sector is critical to enhancing cross-border payments. The IIF-EPA Joint Consultative Forum on Cross-Border Payments will bring together our members on a regular basis to discuss issues of mutual interest arising from the Roadmap, liaise with the Financial Services Board, the Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures and other standard-setting bodies,” said Brad Carr, Managing Director, Digital Finance, Institute of International Finance.

The G20 Enhancing Cross Border Payments Roadmap

The G20 Leaders’ Summit in November 2020 agreed that lowering the cost and improving the speed, reliability, and transparency of cross-border payments is a key priority. In doing so G20 Leaders endorsed a detailed Roadmap on Enhancing Cross Border Payments, with actions out to 2023 required to deliver an ambitious change agenda.

The roadmap calls out collaboration between the official sector and private sector as essential, and plans for a number of formal consultation windows over the coming years as new standards are developed and rules are harmonised.

This roadmap was developed by the Financial Services Board (FSB) building on work done by the Committee for Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI) with industry input. Besides the FSB and CPMI, official sector organisations such as the International Monetary Fund and Bank for International Settlements are working to deliver this roadmap.