Kandie Alter is vice president of the Payments Policy Group. Her group does original research and market monitoring on retail payment systems in the U.S. and abroad, focusing on payment system innovation and evolution. She recently led the drafting for the final reports of the Faster Payments Task Force, a financial services industry initiative to identify and assess models for real-time payments in the United States. She and her team write and speak on topics including payments modernization, security, and governance.

Kandie has served in several functions at the Chicago Fed including strategy, supervision and regulation, and enterprise risk management. Prior to coming to the Fed, she held positions in the tech industry and in non-profit workforce development. In addition to her payments work, Kandie supports urban schools in her Chicago neighborhood of Rogers Park, serving on a Chicago Public Schools local school council and in RISE49, a coalition of school council members promoting equity and programming for neighborhood schools.

The Chicago Fed was recently recognized by Working Mother magazine as a Top 100 company and Kandie represented the bank as Working Mother of the Year for 2018. She also serves as executive sponsor to the Family Resource Group, an employee support network group.

Kandie received a BA in communications from the University of New Mexico, and a master’s degree in public policy from the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy Studies.