Starting the Transaction: Payment Initiation and Customer Experience

This technical note is meant to help policymakers and payment system operators understand recent trends in payment initiation and customer experience in making interoperable payments work better for low-income populations. Key findings include:

• Adoption of alias-based addressing offers an important opportunities but the trade-offs must be weighed.
• Third-party payment initiation is key to expanding instant payments but must be done with careful consideration.
• Fit-for-purpose design and implementation are critical to enable Request to Pay services reduce the financial literacy burden.