BIS - Bank for International Settlements
The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) serves central banks in their pursuit of monetary and financial stability, promotes collaboration among central banks, and conducts research on policy issues confronting central banks and financial supervisory authorities.
The Bank's Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI) serves as a forum for central banks to monitor and analyze developments in domestic payments and monetary transfers and clearing. The committee's page can be reached by selecting it from the BIS home page footer. (You can also reach it via the "committees" tab in the nav bar, but the drop down options given are not intuitive and do not link to the 'overview' page.)
Two aspects of the Committee's work are particularly relevant for Payment Systems research and are linked to below,
Payment, clearing and settlement in various countries
This page provides links to publications on payment clearing and settlement systems for particular countries. The CPMI periodically publishes reference works on payment, clearing and settlement systems in the CPMI member countries. These reports are know as Red Books, comprised of two volumes which are periodically revised. The Red Book publications are entitled “Payment, clearing and settlement systems in ….” covering an individual member country.
Other publications on payment, clearing and settlement systems include:
Green Book reports cover the Southern Africa Development Community, example Malawi
Yellow Book reports under the auspices of CEMLA and the World Bank cover the Western Hemisphere, example Argentina (in Spanish & English)
Silver Book reports published under the auspices of the World Bank under the Commonwealth of Independent States Payment and Securities Settlement Initiative, example Armenia
Blue Book reports from the European Central Bank.
These reports are organized by regions in the CPMI section linked above.
Africa
America/Caribbean
Asia/Pacific
Middle East/Arab Peninsula
Europe
Through the Central bank hub tab, found in the navigation bar, you may access the websites of central banks worldwide, the financial regulatory and supervisory authorities of the different countries and research publications from central banks and international financial institutions. See the following sections:
UNCITRAL - UN Commission on International Trade Law
UNCITRAL is a subsidiary organization of the UN General Assembly that seeks to standardize international trade laws.
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UNCITRAL - International Payment Systems pageUNCITRAL's page on International Payments links to texts of International Conventions, the 1992 UNCITRAL Model Law on International Credit Transfers, and also a bibliography of UN papers on the subject.
The Fed
The main office of the Federal Reserve System and some of the regional banks provide payment systems information and useful links. Some of the sites are listed below.
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Federal Reserve Board of GovernorsThe main Fed web site maintains a page on Payment Systems. It provides links to related statutes and regulations as well as other sources in the central bank site. Hover over the "payment systems" tab in the navigation bar for additional links.
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Banking and Payments Research from the Kansas City FedCategorized papers by the Kansas City Fed research staff, "...including types of payments methods, developments in payments networks, and various participants' roles in the payments system...", listed by year. Scroll to the bottom of the page for the archived categories
World Bank
The World Bank states that it, "...works to improve the safety and efficiency of payment systems by providing financial and technical assistance and policy advice to client governments. The Bank contributes to international standard-setting, assessment and implementation. The Bank also advances and disseminates payment-system knowledge."
Most of the "payment systems" related information is concerned with harmonization and with financial inclusion of underserved populations. Documents and reports can be found in various pages on the site. You can begin a search at these two portals:
The World Bank Research and Publications search page
World Bank Group Open Knowledge Repository
The repository allows keyword searching and provides some filters. For instance, a search for the phrase 'payment systems', brings up over 1,000 results. Using the filter by "Topic" in the right side of the page for "Payment Systems and Infrastructure" returns 347 supposedly more relevant "hits".
Within those 347 results you can use the filters to further narrow by date, region, or country.