Payment System Interoperability and Oversight: the International Dimension
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International Telecommunication Union ITU-T FG-DFS TELECOMMUNICATION STANDARDIZATION SECTOR OF ITU (11/2016) ITU-T Focus Group Digital Financial Services Payment System Interoperability and Oversight: The International Dimension Focus Group Technical Report ITU-T Focus Group Digital Financial Services: Payment System Interoperability and Oversight: The International Dimension FOREWORD The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is the United Nations specialized agency in the field of telecommunications, information and communication technologies (ICTs). The ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) is a permanent organ of ITU. ITU-T is responsible for studying technical, operating and tariff questions and issuing Recommendations on them with a view to standardizing telecommunications on a worldwide basis. The procedures for establishment of focus groups are defined in Recommendation ITU-T A.7. TSAG set up the ITU-T Focus Group Digital Financial Services (FG DFSs) at its meeting in June 2014. TSAG is the parent group of FG DFS. Deliverables of focus groups can take the form of technical reports, specifications, etc., and aim to provide material for consideration by the parent group in its standardization activities. Deliverables of focus groups are not ITU-T Recommendations. ITU 2016 This work is licensed to the public through a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). For more information visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ 1 ITU-T Focus Group Digital Financial Services: Payment System Interoperability and Oversight: The International Dimension Payment System Interoperability and Oversight: The International Dimension 2 ITU-T Focus Group Digital Financial Services: Payment System Interoperability and Oversight: The International Dimension About this Report The author of this Technical Report is Biagio Bossone, International Financial Consultant. Contributions were received from the members of the FG DFS Interoperability Working Group. The Technical Report was reviewed by the ITU Focus Group Digital Financial Services (FG DFS). Thomas Lammer provided the overall guidance for this project. If you would like to provide any additional information, please contact Vijay Mauree at [email protected] 3 ITU-T Focus Group Digital Financial Services: Payment System Interoperability and Oversight: The International Dimension Table of Contents Page EXECUTIVE SUMMARY .................................................................................................................. 5 PURPOSE OF THIS REPORT ............................................................................................................ 6 INTERNATIONAL INTERLINKING OF PAYMENT SYSTEM INFRASTRUCTURES .............. 9 A. Drivers of international payment system infrastructures (PSIs) interlinking ...................... 10 B. Modalities of international PSI interlinking ......................................................................... 10 C. Examples of international PSI interlinking .......................................................................... 12 PSI INTERLINKING AND INTEROPERABILITY ........................................................................ 17 A. National Interoperability ....................................................................................................... 18 B. International interoperability: At the regional level .............................................................. 19 C: Challenges and risks of international interoperability ........................................................... 20 IMPLICATIONS FOR OVERSIGHT POLICY ................................................................................ 24 A. The cross-border dimension of payment system oversight ................................................... 25 B. Oversight principles for international payment system interoperability ............................... 26 ANNEX 1 OVERSIGHT OF PAYMENT SYSTEMS IN THE SADC ........................................... 34 List of Boxes Box 1: Architecture of Regional Clearing Infrastructures ................................................................. 15 Box 2: Relevant standards for regional financial infrastructure integration ...................................... 23 Box 3: Links ....................................................................................................................................... 25 List of Figures Figure 1. Decentralized Payments System ......................................................................................... 11 Figure 3. Interoperability scenarios at the national level ................................................................... 19 Figure 4. Interoperability scenarios at the regional level ................................................................... 20 Figure 5: Interoperability scenarios at the global level ...................................................................... 21 4 ITU-T Focus Group Digital Financial Services: Payment System Interoperability and Oversight: The International Dimension Executive Summary Much as it is critical for the development and diffusion of modern (digital) retail payment services across all service users in a domestic economy, payment system interoperability is also essential in today’s globalizing world economy to enable the smooth and safe flow of cross-border transactions across users from different countries. This report approaches the issue of interoperability of payment systems and central bank oversight of payment systems from an international perspective. This report is a companion to the “Payment System Oversight and Interoperability” report by the ITU Focus Group Digital Financial Services – Interoperability Working Group (WG). Today the interlinking of national Payment System Infrastructures (PSIs) and their interoperability represent important prerequisites for economic and financial development and constitute sources of potentially significant risks. Therefore, they require public authorities in the relevant jurisdictions to mutually cooperate in order to make them happen and to adopt suitable oversight provisions in order to render them sustainable. The purpose of this report is to discuss payment system interoperability and oversight policy in the context of international economic and financial integration. Although international and national interoperability feature similar types of risk, the former raises specific challenges. Such challenges bear implications for central bank oversight policy. These challenges essentially stem from the scaling up to the cross-border level of the risks that are usually associated with national interoperability and from the international harmonization and standardization which national PSIs need to be subject to if they are to be part of an international interoperability agreement. While the principles elaborated in the companion report remain valid in the context of international interoperability, the challenges raised by the cross-border dimension of interoperability point to the need for adapting the scope of oversight of the linked or shared PSIs. This report considers the implications of PSI interlinking and international interoperability for central bank oversight policy, and elaborates on a set of principles that complement those developed in the companion report. The principles cover some critical institutional aspects which underpin the establishment of international interoperability agreements, as well as the planning and implementation stages of the agreements, and their sustainability. National public authorities and private sector stakeholders should consider adopting these principles when establishing international interoperability agreements. This report is not intended to be a regulatory document. The principles should be understood as providing methodological guidelines to public authorities and private sector stakeholders involved in establishing international interoperability agreements. This report’s main aim is to provide policy advice, recommendations and indications to country authorities, PSI operators and administrators, and service providers. 5 ITU-T Focus Group Digital Financial Services: Payment System Interoperability and Oversight: The International Dimension Purpose of this Report 6 ITU-T Focus Group Digital Financial Services: Payment System Interoperability and Oversight: The International Dimension 1 This is a companion report to the “Payment System Oversight and Interoperability” report by the DFS Focus Group – Interoperability WG. The report examines the issue of interoperability of payment systems and central bank oversight of payment systems from an international perspective.1 As much as it is critical for the development and diffusion of modern (digital) retail payment services across all service users in a domestic economy, payment system interoperability is essential in today’s globalizing world economy to enable the smooth and safe flow of cross-border transactions across users from different countries. 2 The cross-border integration of trade and financial markets has accelerated with the successive waves of trade and financial liberalization, which have taken place worldwide since the mid-to-late 1980s. The international linking of critical market infrastructures for payments, securities, and lately, derivatives, have widened and deepened as national economies across the world have experienced increasing cross-border