COLUMBUS, Ohio—Corporate One Federal Credit Union has announced the election of Charles Harkness, VP, Office of Portfolio Project Management, to the Federal Reserve System’s Faster Payments Governance Framework Formation Team (GFFT). Harkness has served on the Faster Payments Task Force since 2015, and as part of the GFFT will help develop and establish an initial faster payments governance framework for the U.S. marketplace. Corporate One is the only credit union network representative on the Faster Payments Governance Framework Formation Team.
“As partner to more than 1,600 financial institutions in 49 U.S. states and territories and as a payments expert, it is a strategic imperative for Corporate One to participate in, help outline and deliver world class faster payments solutions here in the United States, and we proudly do so representing the credit union network,” said Corporate One President/CEO Lee Butke. “We are very pleased that Charles is our representative and is able to continue his work with the Faster Payments Task Force as a member of the GFFT.”
The Faster Payments Governance Framework Formation Team is a short-term working group, expected to have their draft recommendations completed in the second half of 2018. Its recommendations will be published and, after seeking comments from all payment system stakeholders, final recommendations for implementation will be completed by early 2018. Harkness was elected as a representative for “medium financial institutions,” and will serve with more than 20 others from the following areas: Business end users, consumer interest organizations, small financial institutions, large financial institutions, non-bank providers and other stakeholders.
Harkness has 37 years’ experience in the financial services industry, with the last 15 years in the corporate credit union environment providing support for payment services products. Prior to this, Harkness served as Financial Services Director for the Federal Reserve Bank – Jacksonville Branch. During his 22-year tenure at the Federal Reserve, he managed one of the Federal Reserve’s largest check processing facilities, processing peak volumes of 60 million items per month. Harkness earned the ECCHO National Check Professional (NCP) designation as part of the inaugural group in 2010.