Tuesday, January 24, 2023
Commenting on the digital payments ecosystem, ETA CEO Jodie Kelley described the industry as innovative, dynamic, competitive and highly regulated, with an interoperable infrastructure that supports a continuous pipeline of innovative products and services.
"As the only payments trade association advocating in DC, the states, and Canada we are pleased to release our policy priorities," she said in a statement. "From digital assets to privacy, our 2023 priorities demonstrate the breadth and depth of the payments industry."
Kelley further noted the ETA supports a policy environment that nurtures competition and protects consumers by advancing public policy best practices with regard to cybersecurity, digital asset management and open banking, all based on the following five guiding principles:
As the United States continues to explore approaches to open banking, ETA representatives are encouraging lawmakers to enact regulations that provide consumers with financial insight while protecting their privacy, while also promoting comprehensive, principles-based open banking policies that enable consumers to control how their data is shared and used, the ETA stated.
In addition, ETA leaders encouraged payments and government stakeholders to use data-driven insights to fight fraud and work together to craft privacy and data protection policies that provide permissible uses of data to prevent fraud and protect consumers as well as reasonable rights to access and request correction or deletion of personally identifiable information (PII).
The ETA's prescriptive road map for best practices and policies addressed a variety of emerging payments trends, including faster payments, central bank digital currency and peer-to-peer payment schemes. The association emphasized that its guidelines support all stakeholders, including marginalized communities and unbanked and underbanked consumers.
"[For] ETA members, helping the underserved is a long-standing priority," the ETA wrote. "We constantly develop and deploy products and solutions designed to make it easy for low-and-moderate-income Americans to conduct their daily financial transactions. As such we support policies to create a positive policy environment that supports helping the underserved."
The ETA reports annually on industrywide efforts to help underserved communities, the association stated, referencing a white paper, Industry Insights: Creating a More Inclusive Economy: How Fintech Advances Digital Resources for Underserved Communities," published Feb. 7, 2022. Co-authored by ETA staffers Jeff Patchen, manager of government affairs, and Scott Talbott, senior vice president, government affairs, the report highlighted financial inclusion initiatives in 2020 and 2021.
Kelley commended ETA member companies for improving consumer access to vital services. "ETA members have raised the bar, meeting and exceeding expectations during a crucial moment in history," she said. "The progress made these past two years is going to continue to reap great dividends for society in the future."
Additional details on the ETA's 2023 legislative and regulatory priorities can be found in the following links:
ETA Federal 2023 Legislative and Regulatory Priorities: www.electran.org/wp-content/uploads/ETA-2023-Federal-Legislative-and-Regulatory-Priorities-1.pdf
ETA State 2023 Legislative and Regulatory Priorities: www.electran.org/wp-content/uploads/ETA-2023-State-Legislative-and-Regulatory-Priorities-1.pdf
ETA Canada 2023 Policy Priorities: www.electran.org/wp-content/uploads/ETA-2023-Canada-Legislative-and-Regulatory-Priorities-1.pdf 
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