U.S. Faster Payments Council and Accredited Standards Committee X9 Form Strategic Alliance to Advance Faster Payments Standards

BENTONVILLE, Ark. & ANNAPOLIS, Md.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The U.S. Faster Payments Council (FPC), a membership organization devoted to advancing safe, easy-to-use faster payments in the United States, and the Accredited Standards Committee X9 Inc. (X9), the organization accredited by ANSI to develop financial industry standards for the United States, today announced a strategic alliance designed to accelerate the development and adoption of standards for faster payments in the United States.

This partnership brings together the FPC's broad industry membership and focus on driving faster payments adoption with X9's deep expertise in standards development for the financial services sector. By aligning their complementary strengths, the two organizations will work to ensure secure, interoperable, and widely adopted faster payments standards that benefit all stakeholders, especially business end-users seeking more efficient, reliable payments solutions.

"The ability for business end-users to send and receive payments quickly, securely, and with confidence is critical to the value proposition of faster payments," said FPC Executive Director and CEO Reed Luhtanen. "This alliance with X9 ensures that end users will benefit from robust standards that not only improve compatibility and security but also help create a consistent experience across the industry. Together, we're creating the framework that will support greater trust and adoption of faster payments."

The collaboration will also build on the efforts underway in the FPC's Work Groups, which bring diverse industry voices to the table to tackle pressing topics such as fraud mitigation, cross-border payments, and operational considerations. Through the alliance with X9, the insights and recommendations generated by these Work Groups will help inform standards development, ensuring that they reflect the real-world needs of a broad range of stakeholders.

"Trust drives adoption," said X9 Executive Director Steve Stevens. "By combining the FPC's practitioner insight with X9's consensus-driven standards, we're embedding assurance into every faster payment, so that banks, processors, and corporations can move funds with speed and certainty."

As part of the alliance, the FPC and X9 will also form a Joint Standards Steering Committee to provide strategic oversight and guide collaborative standards initiatives. The committee will launch in early 2026, with nominations and elections for seats opening in the first quarter of the year.

About the U.S. Faster Payments Council (FPC)

The FPC is an industry-led membership organization whose vision is a world-class payment system where Americans can safely and securely pay anyone, anywhere, at any time and with near-immediate funds availability. By design, the FPC encourages a diverse range of perspectives and is open to all stakeholders in the U.S. payment system. Guided by principles of fairness, inclusiveness, flexibility and transparency, the FPC uses collaborative, problem-solving approaches to resolve the issues that are inhibiting broad faster payments adoption in this country. For more information, please visit FasterPaymentsCouncil.org.

About the Accredited Standards Committee X9 Inc.

The Accredited Standards Committee X9 Inc. is a non-profit organization accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) to develop and maintain national and through ISO international standards for the financial services industry. The subjects of X9's standards include: retail, mobile and business payments; corporate treasury functions; blockchain technology; processing of electronic legal orders issued to financial institutions; tracking of financial transactions and instruments; financial transaction messaging (ISO 8583 and 20022); quantum computing; AI, QR code secure payments; checks; cloud; data breach notification and more. In addition, X9 is the governing body for a family of X9 Financial PKI products issued by DigiCert.

X9 acts as the U.S. Technical Advisory Group (TAG) for ISO TC68 (Financial) and performs the secretariat functions for ISO TC68. Please visit our website (www.x9.org) for more information.

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