2023-07-25 Payments Working Group Meeting notes

Presentation from Mifos

• David Higgins from Mifos provided an update on the project. He reported that the team has completed the first iteration of the project and they have now started the fourth sprint of the development cycle. Due to certain unforeseen issues and delays in design input, they have agreed to do a fifth sprint. The fundamentals of the project have not changed and the team is currently in the process of finalizing

• Soban Najam discussed how data is seeded into the account mapper from the registration building block. He pointed out that this can be done in two ways: through the register beneficiary interface, which allows for bulk data provision, and by individual beneficiaries inputting the information. He also provided insight on the benefits of registering and updating the beneficiary information through these interfaces

• Soban outlined the approach of not holding any sensitive financial information about beneficiaries in the registration building block, and generating a functional ID for each beneficiary during the registration process which would redirect them to a secure page for inputting their financial details.

• Karim Jindani expanded on Soban's points, discussing the importance of bulk operations in Government to Public (G2P) operations and the challenges involved in finalizing the architecture for secure GUI switching and aligning references to common entities across different APIs.

• David Higgins suggested that implementation should be held off until the architecture team finalizes the decision on the method.

Approval of Technical Reports:

• Approval was given for the updated Account Mapper document, Voucher Management, and Bulk Disbursement.

• The potential changes needed for an account mapper document in relation to a secure page were discussed. David Higgins from Mifos informed that a new version of the document that addresses the secure page issue would be provided soon.
  
  

P2G Payments

• The discussion about potential modifications was brought up but the conclusion was that the fundamentals have not changed.

• . Karim Jindani elaborated on a system to document the roles and scenarios that can occur between a settlement agent, biller financial service provider (FSP), and customer peer FSP. He emphasized the complexity of the situation when different financial institutions are involved.

• The group discussed who should drive the bill payment scheme, whether it's a national payment system or an individual bank.

• The topic of vouchers being allowed for P2G payments was discussed but no mention of this was seen in the current documentation. Soban Najam explained how the process of vouchers is interconnected with two existing processes.

• The concept of pre-registration payments was brought up, with Soban Najam outlining how a government entity requiring such payments can be integrated into the system as a 'biller'.

Payment BB Identify 3-5 Candidate Products

• This topic was not discussed during the meeting