The Drivers of The Recent Payment Systems Reforms Globally

In this paper we introduce and discuss the three drivers of recent intensive payment systems reforms globally in the last 5 years in the process of implementing safe and efficient payment systems. We define the first driver as the strong domestic demand for financial stability and better financial services. The second driver is the increasing level of international cooperation and efforts of international financial institutions. The third driver is the impact positive externalities of globalisation reflected in the ICT area. The ICT firms are providing “turnkey” payment systems solutions and ready-to-use network, namely SWIFT, for a world economy of any size to go live with a robust payment system infrastructure. When we analyse various payment systems reform cases from the world economies under different groups, we observe the impacts of these drivers strongly. Yet there are weaknesses in most of the systems worldwide, when these systems are assessed against the newly developed “best-practices” named the core principles for Systemically Important Payment Systems as developed under the aegis of BIS/CPSS. In our analysis, we also observe that these drivers are also helping for the world economies not only to implement the first generation of payment systems but also to continuously improve their systems to meet higher standards.