Release Date: July 30, 2015

For immediate release

The Federal Reserve System on Thursday announced the appointment of Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago Senior Vice President Sean Rodriguez as its Faster Payments Strategy Leader. In this role, Rodriguez will lead activities to identify effective approaches for implementing a safe, ubiquitous, faster payments capability in the United States.

Rodriguez will chair the Federal Reserve's Faster Payments Task Force, comprised of more than 300 payment system stakeholders interested in improving the speed of authorization, clearing, settlement and notification of various types of personal and business payments. In addition to leading faster payments activities, Rodriguez will continue to oversee the Federal Reserve's Payments Industry Relations Program.

"Sean's leadership experience across payment operations, customer relations and industry outreach is exactly what we need to successfully advance the vision for a faster payments capability in the United States," said Gordon Werkema, the Federal Reserve's payments strategy director to whom Rodriguez will report. "His passion has contributed significantly to the momentum behind our initiative to date and we're confident in his ability to carry our strategy forward in strong partnership with the industry."

Rodriguez brings more than 30 years of experience with Federal Reserve Financial Services in operations, product development, sales and marketing. He helped establish the Federal Reserve's Customer Relations and Support Office in 2001 and served on the Federal Reserve's leadership team for implementing the Check 21 initiative. More recently, Rodriguez was instrumental in the design and launch of the Federal Reserve's Payments Industry Relations Program charged with engaging a broad range of organizations in efforts to improve the U.S. payment system.

Additional information about the Federal Reserve's Strategies for Improving the U.S. Payment System, including the Faster Payments Task Force, is available at FedPaymentsImprovement.org.

Media Contacts:
Financial Services Policy Committee Alexis Akervik	(612) 204-5271	alexis.akervik@mpls.frb.org
Federal Reserve Board Susan Stawick	(202) 452-2955	susan.k.stawick@frb.gov