This presentation will cover an overview of retail/consumer payments in the U.S. and an overview of the Federal Reserve's role in payments. It will also include discussion of the Federal Reserve's recent "U.S. Faster Payments Task Force" initiative, the ACH (automated clearing house) system and the data network underpinning it, this system's resilience and efforts to protect it, and perspectives on the U.S. payments system by comparison with other countries.