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Areas of Expertise

Traditional and Emerging Payments, Banking Law, Compliance, Regulation of FinTech, History of Roman and Canon Law


Biography

Richard Fraher is an expert in the structure and function of traditional and emerging payment systems, banking law, compliance, and emerging regulation of fintech. He is the founder and principal of Payment Innovation & Regulation, LLC, offering strategic consulting, expert witness services, and assistance with payments issues resolution at the intersection of the payments business, technological innovation, law and regulation, and public policy. Previously Mr. Fraher was legal counsel for the Federal Reserve’s Retail Payments Office with primary responsibility for the Fed’s check and ACH services. He led the Fed’s Payments Advisory Group, in which attorneys for the Reserve Banks identified and resolved emerging legal and policy issues in the Fed’s payments services. He was the principal author of the Federal Reserve Banks’ rules for image based check collection and return and same day ACH. He was instrumental in the creation of the FedGlobal ACH service, drafting and negotiating agreements with foreign banks and processors and shaping private sector rules that bridge the US ACH with foreign payment systems using the ISO 20022 format. He is named as an inventor in two patents related to payments processing and settlement. Before he joined the Fed, he was a senior attorney for the FDIC, working primarily in compliance and enforcement. Earlier in his career, he was an assistant professor of history at Harvard, visiting scholar at Cambridge University, and professor of law at Indiana University.