Real-time retail payments systems or faster payments: A quick framework for decision making

Faster payments, or real-time retail payments implementations, are currently gaining momentum, with a number of countries looking at implementing such a solution to augment the choice of payment instruments for customers. This paper looks at existing real-time retail payments by scanning the literature, and identifies real-time retail payment systems (RTRPS) in operation, discusses some of their attributes, establishes through data and analysis that it is the income level that has a good correlation with the number of cashless per capita transactions per year in a country and not necessarily the population levels, although population levels do determine the maximum possible cashless transactions in a country. Thereafter, in order to help countries (particularly developing countries) facilitate discussions and decision making on RTRPS implementation, a simple framework based on the population and adoption levels of cashless payments in the country, an index for RTRPS readiness, is constructed. Some options that countries could consider for such implementation are also discussed.