Celent has been involved with Instant Payments since, well, everyone called them Real Time Payments! Our first report dates back to 2014, and that five years feels long looking back now. While the journey to real time has most definitely begun, each country is moving at a different pace, and is at different levels of maturity.

But, to stretch the journey metaphor, having a destination in mind makes planning for the journey that much easier. There are a number of hallmarks for the maturity, but two in particular, use cases and the impact that ISO 20022 will have, are key and should shape a banks future plans. At the very least, banks should foucs on the customer experience rather than "just" the rails.