A research agenda, not completed reporting. These are the original topic questions and leads. Named companies, dates and outcomes require verification. Editorial operations and internal schemas remain private.

2. Domestic real-time payment systems

2.1 System profiles (seed list — verify all)

For each: operator, launch date, settlement model, hours, limits, participants, access for non-banks, overlay services (QR, alias/proxy, request-to-pay, recurring mandates, confirmation of payee), fees, fraud liability, volumes, and key 2020–2026 changes.

  • United States: FedNow Service (launched July 2023; participant growth; network limit increases — verify current maximum and dates); RTP network by The Clearing House (launched 2017; limit increased to $1M in 2024 — verify; participant and volume statistics); Zelle as an overlay (not a rail) and its settlement on RTP/ACH/internal ledgers (verify); interoperability debates between FedNow and RTP
  • United Kingdom: Faster Payments (2008; limit increases; New Payments Architecture program status — verify), Confirmation of Payee, APP reimbursement
  • European Union/SEPA: SCT Inst scheme; TIPS; RT1 (EBA Clearing); Instant Payments Regulation (EU) 2024/886 — deadlines for euro-area PSPs to receive (January 2025) and send (October 2025) instant payments, price parity with standard transfers, Verification of Payee (October 2025), sanctions screening changes, and later deadlines for non-euro member states (verify all dates); European Payments Initiative (EPI) and Wero wallet rollout (verify countries and e-commerce launch); national systems (Bizum, Swish, Blik, iDEAL migration to Wero — verify)
  • India: UPI (NPCI; 2016 launch; monthly transactions; UPI Lite, UPI 123PAY, credit on UPI/RuPay credit cards on UPI, UPI Circle, AutoPay, market-share cap proposals and deadline extensions for third-party apps — verify); IMPS
  • Brazil: Pix (Banco Central do Brasil; launched November 2020); Pix Saque/Troco, Pix Cobrança, Pix Automático (recurring — verify launch 2025), Pix por Aproximação/NFC (verify), Pix Parcelado/installments (verify status), MED special refund mechanism and MED 2.0 (verify), U.S. trade-policy scrutiny of Pix in 2025 (verify)
  • Singapore: FAST, PayNow, SGQR
  • Australia: New Payments Platform (NPP), Osko, PayID, PayTo (mandates; rollout and adoption — verify), BECS migration plans (verify)
  • Others to profile: Canada Real-Time Rail (verify launch status and dates), Mexico SPEI and CoDi/DiMo, Thailand PromptPay, Malaysia DuitNow, Indonesia BI-FAST and QRIS, Philippines InstaPay, Nigeria NIP (NIBSS), Kenya (M-Pesa context; interoperability), Saudi Arabia sarie, UAE Aani, Hong Kong FPS, Japan Zengin/Cotra, South Korea, Colombia Bre-B (verify launch), Peru, Chile, Pakistan Raast, Egypt InstaPay, Sweden RIX-INST, Poland Express Elixir/BLIK, Nordic P27 (cancelled — verify)

2.2 Why adoption differs (analysis)

Research and weigh evidence (academic, BIS, central bank, World Bank) on drivers:

  • Central bank as operator and mandate-setter (Pix mandatory participation for large institutions; UPI public infrastructure) vs. voluntary participation (FedNow)
  • Pricing: zero MDR for UPI; free for individuals on Pix; per-transaction fees to banks in the U.S.
  • Overlay design: QR codes, aliases/proxies, open APIs for third-party apps, merchant acceptance
  • Existing card incentives (rewards funded by interchange) and consumer protection asymmetries
  • Bank incumbency and revenue cannibalization
  • Fraud experience and liability rules
  • Government payment use (benefits, taxes) as demand driver
  • Smartphone penetration, identity infrastructure (Aadhaar, CPF), and financial-inclusion policy

Produce a scored comparison matrix (criteria defined, weights explained, evidence cited).

2.3 Request-to-pay, pay-by-bank, and mandates

  • Request for Payment on RTP and FedNow (verify adoption data)
  • Pay-by-bank for e-commerce in the U.S. (ACH- and RTP-based; providers such as Trustly, Plaid, Stripe, Adyen, Worldpay, Checkbook — verify)
  • UK open-banking payments, variable recurring payments (VRP) and commercial VRP roadmap (verify JROC/FCA/PSR plans and status)
  • EU SEPA Request-to-Pay scheme (verify adoption)
  • PayTo, Pix Automático, UPI AutoPay as mandate models
  • Merchant economics: A2A vs. card costs, refund handling, lack of chargeback protections

3. Fraud, liability, and consumer protection on instant rails

  • Why irrevocability increases authorized push payment (APP) fraud risk (link to Part 09 for depth)
  • UK: PSR mandatory reimbursement from October 7, 2024 (maximum claim £85,000 — verify), 50/50 split between sending and receiving PSPs, consumer standard of caution, early outcome data published by PSR (verify)
  • EU: Verification of Payee; PSR (Payment Services Regulation) proposals on spoofing liability (verify final text)
  • U.S.: Regulation E coverage of unauthorized vs. authorized payments; FedNow and RTP fraud-prevention tools (verify); Zelle scam reimbursement policy changes and litigation (CFPB suit filed December 2024 and later dropped; New York Attorney General action — verify)
  • Brazil: MED/MED 2.0, nighttime Pix limits, device registration rules (verify)
  • India: UPI fraud statistics (RBI annual report, government replies in Parliament — verify), transaction limits for new users, "Digital Payments Intelligence Platform" (verify)
  • Australia: Scams Prevention Framework legislation (verify enactment and sector codes), Confirmation of Payee rollout (verify)
  • Singapore: Shared Responsibility Framework for phishing scams (verify effective date)

4. Cross-border payments architecture

4.1 Correspondent banking and SWIFT

  • How correspondent banking works: nostro/vostro, cover payments, serial payments, prefunding, cut-off times, fees deducted in transit (OUR/SHA/BEN)
  • De-risking and correspondent relationship decline (BIS/FSB data — verify)
  • SWIFT gpi tracking and speed statistics (verify SWIFT-published figures; label as operator-reported)
  • SWIFT ISO 20022 migration: MT/MX coexistence ended November 2025 (verify), structured address requirements (verify dates), data-quality issues
  • SWIFT initiatives: retail cross-border scheme (verify), blockchain/tokenized-asset experiments and shared ledger announcements (verify status)
  • Sanctions and SWIFT disconnection (Russia 2022) and alternatives (SPFS, CIPS — context)

4.2 G20 cross-border roadmap

  • FSB/CPMI targets for 2027 (cost, speed, access, transparency for wholesale, retail, remittances — verify exact targets)
  • FSB progress reports and KPI data (verify latest)

4.3 Interlinking fast payment systems

Build linkage records (seed list — verify status and dates):

  • Project Nexus (BIS Innovation Hub → Nexus Global Payments; founding systems from India, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand; target go-live — verify)
  • UPI–PayNow (launched February 2023 — verify), UPI international acceptance and links (UAE, France, Sri Lanka, Mauritius, Nepal, Bhutan, others — verify), NPCI International agreements
  • PromptPay–PayNow, DuitNow–PayNow, QR interoperability across ASEAN (verify)
  • Buna (Arab Monetary Fund), PAPSS (Pan-African Payment and Settlement System — verify volumes), TCIB (SADC)
  • SEPA Instant linkage proposals with other regions (ECB exploration of TIPS links with India/UPI and others — verify)
  • Pix international ambitions (verify)
  • Multi-CBDC projects: mBridge (BIS exit 2024 — verify), Project Agorá (tokenized correspondent banking — verify phases), Project Dunbar/Icebreaker (concluded) — link to Part 11

4.4 Non-bank cross-border networks

  • Card-based cross-border push: Visa Direct, Mastercard Move (verify product names and corridors)
  • Wise Platform and its access to domestic rails (e.g., direct access to Faster Payments, Pix, and settlement accounts; verify each)
  • Stablecoin-based cross-border flows (link to Part 11): verify real volume vs. announcements
  • B2B cross-border: Airwallex, Payoneer, Ebury, Convera, Nium, Thunes, dLocal, Rapyd (verify)

5. Remittances

5.1 Market and cost data

  • Global and corridor remittance volumes (World Bank/KNOMAD Migration and Development Briefs — verify latest)
  • RPW global average cost for sending $200 (verify latest quarter), SDG target 10.c (3% by 2030) and progress
  • Cost composition: transfer fee, FX margin, receiving fee, cash-pickup premium, funding-method surcharge (card vs. bank)
  • Digital vs. cash-based remittance costs; banks vs. money transfer operators vs. digital-only providers

5.2 Providers (seed list — verify)

Wise, Remitly, Western Union, MoneyGram (taken private 2023 — verify), Ria/Euronet, Xoom (PayPal), WorldRemit/Sendwave (Zepz), Intermex, Revolut, Taptap Send, Félix Pago (WhatsApp-based, stablecoin rails — verify), bank wires, mobile money partners

5.3 Rules and taxes

  • U.S. CFPB Remittance Transfer Rule (Reg E Subpart B): disclosures, cancellation, error resolution, 500-transfer normal-course threshold (verify)
  • U.S. federal remittance excise tax enacted in 2025 legislation (1% on certain cash-funded transfers, effective January 1, 2026 — verify scope, exemptions, and implementation guidance)
  • State remittance taxes (e.g., Oklahoma fee — verify) and proposals
  • EU Cross-Border Payments Regulation and currency conversion transparency (verify)
  • UK and Australia remittance transparency guidance (verify)

5.4 Remittance cost testing protocol

  • Choose 15+ corridors (e.g., US→Mexico, US→India, US→Philippines, US→Guatemala, US→Nigeria, UK→India, UK→Poland, UK→Nigeria, UAE→India, UAE→Pakistan, Saudi Arabia→Egypt, Australia→China, Canada→Philippines, Germany→Turkey, Spain→Colombia — verify relevance with World Bank corridor data)
  • For each provider and corridor: capture quote for $200 and $1,000 (or local equivalent), funding method, delivery method, stated fee, offered rate, mid-market reference rate from a named source with timestamp, total cost to recipient, speed claimed
  • Compute FX markup = (mid-market − offered)/mid-market; total cost % = (fee + FX markup value)/send amount
  • Repeat captures on at least three dates; report median and range
  • Record promotional first-transfer rates separately; never present promo as standard
  • Archive quote screenshots with personal data removed

6. Comparisons to produce

  • Real-time payments tracker by country (launch, volume per capita, limits, overlay features, fraud rules, cross-border links)
  • UPI vs. Pix vs. FedNow vs. RTP vs. Faster Payments vs. SEPA Instant (table)
  • Domestic vs. cross-border cost and speed
  • Cards vs. A2A for e-commerce merchants (link to Part 02)
  • Remittance cost league table by corridor (neutral, dated, methodology disclosed; not an endorsement)

7. Workflows

Use the master workflow format for:

  • Sending money internationally at the lowest real cost (reading the rate, comparing total received)
  • Checking whether your bank supports FedNow or RTP and what limits apply
  • Receiving an instant payment safely as a small business (confirming funds are final, avoiding overpayment scams)
  • Setting up pay-by-bank checkout (merchant/developer)
  • Using UPI or Pix as a visitor or non-resident (verify eligibility rules, e.g., UPI for international travelers/NRIs)
  • What to do if you sent an instant payment to the wrong account or to a scammer (by jurisdiction)
  • Verifying a cross-border wire's status (SWIFT gpi/UETR tracking with your bank)

8. Timeline 2020–2026

  • Pix launch and feature rollouts
  • UPI milestones and international links
  • FedNow launch, participant and limit milestones; RTP limit changes
  • EU Instant Payments Regulation adoption and deadlines; Wero launches
  • UK APP reimbursement regime; PSR changes
  • SWIFT ISO 20022 milestones
  • Nexus and interlinking milestones
  • Remittance tax enactment and effective dates
  • Notable outages of instant payment systems (verify)