Since its inception in 2014, Flavors of Fast has provided insight into the rapidly growing segment of real-time payment. It also highlights the Faster Payment Innovation Index®, which ranks the level of innovation and use of leading industry standards, like ISO 20022, in each initiative. The 2016 report covers 19 live real-time payment frameworks (five more than 2014), five under development and four real-time initiatives in early stage of exploration. In addition, interviews with The Clearing House, EBA CLEARING and the Dutch Payments Association provide details on current and future developments.

“Flavors of Fast offers the financial industry global insights into the evolution of real-time payments,” said Anthony Jabbour, chief operating officer, Banking & Payments, FIS. “But, more importantly, it furthers the debate on the element most relevant to financial professionals – how will the industry innovate on top of these instant payment schemes.”

The report outlines the numerous signposts of progress in existing schemes over the past three years, including, the UK New Access Model, and the introduction of the Universal Payments Interface in the Indian IMPS scheme.

Consumer appetite for immediate payments has sharply increased since 2015’s report, gaining in value and volume, particularly in emerging economies. For instance, volumes and value quadrupled in India, while China showed a thirty-fold increase in volume and a ninety-fold increase in value of payments made.

Other new elements of this year’s report include growing interest in combining “open” API banking and immediate payment initiatives, while Blockchain is now firmly on respondents’ agendas, including as a proposed functional requirement in some early-stage initiatives.