MEFMI Programme Manager Represents the Institute at the Financial Infrastructure Week 2015

The Bank of International Settlements’ Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI) together with the World Bank, held the 5th edition of the Retail Payments Forum (RPF) in Istanbul Turkey, on 1 September 2015. This event was organized as part of the Financial Infrastructure (FI) Week 2015 which run from 1st to 4th September 2015. 

 

The RPF was convened to deliberate on the contemporary topics in retail payments and offer a discussion platform for market participants and authorities. The Financial Infrastructure Week 2015 attracts experts, regulators, practitioners, and private sector representatives to discuss the topical issues in their respective areas and disseminate best practices and international standards.  

 

MEFMI was represented by Ms. Jackie Kitiibwa, a Programme Manager in the Financial Sector management Programme. The forum was attended by over 300 participants from 50 countries. Other participants were mainly from central banks, the international community, commercial banks, capital market authorities, credit bureaus, payment card services, market infrastructure developers, National Treasury and standard setting agencies.

 

The latest financial crisis led to large scale reforms in the regulation of Financial Infrastructures. Regulators around the world acknowledged the need for structural reforms in the financial systems and market infrastructures in particular. Due to the global dimension of the crisis, and the extent to which financial markets have been revealed to be closely interconnected, national regulators moved the policy debate to a supra national level. In this respect, the CPMI/IOSCO published the Principles for Financial Market Infrastructures (PFMIs) that have raised the bar substantially and have triggered large-scale reforms to the regulation of payment and settlement systems worldwide. Some of the issues that were discussed during the FI Week included Financial Market Infrastructure’s readiness to withstand possible new sources of threats and the role of regulators in this respect. 

 

The event provided an opportunity to present best practices that have emerged in this context; that have spurred efficiency and innovation. Delegates had the opportunity to participate in the discussions and contribute to finding solutions to increasing complexities in emerging market needs by exploring themes like:

a.How innovation is reshaping architectures of payment and market infrastructures.

b.How the risk profile of payment services is altered by technology changes and how new threats are identified and addressed.

c.How card payment infrastructure can be leveraged by various innovative payment platforms such as mobile money.

 

The event combined both plenary and breakaways sessions based on the three major pillars of Financial Infrastructures:

i.Payment, remittances and securities Systems

ii.Credit reporting systems

iii.Secured transactions, collateral registries and insolvency regimes

 

Main discussions included the following areas;

•Re-thinking the payment system architecture – trends and opportunities

•Remittances as a gateway to financial inclusion

•Security of retail payments: how to always be one step ahead of criminals

•Secured transactions and collateral registry reforms as a growth engine for micro, small and medium enterprises globally

•New models of payment system oversight

•Securities Settlement Systems

•Financial Market Infrastructures as an anchor for financial stability

•Implementing the General Principles for Credit Reporting

 

MEFMI will continue to re-examine its interventions in payment and settlement systems to cover the technology driven developments.