What Do We Get With The Federal Reserve’s FedNow Instant Payments?

OBSERVATIONS FROM THE FINTECH SNARK TANK

Hurray, instant payments are here! To much fanfare, the Federal Reserve launched its new payments system, FedNow, last week. The new rail gives—or promises to give—consumers and businesses “instant” access to payments and money moved between financial accounts. What goodies should we expect to get from FedNow?

History My Foot

Four years after it announced its plan to build FedNow, the Fed nearly fell over backwards congratulating themselves over the launch. One Fed Reserve employee announced on LinkedIn that “history was made,” ignoring the facts that The Clearing House (TCH) has offered real-time payments (RTP) for six years and that Japan has had real-time payments since 1973.