The Federal Reserve launched its
The
"The Federal Reserve built the FedNow Service to help make everyday payments over the coming years faster and more convenient," Fed Chair Jerome Powell said in a statement. "Over time, as more banks choose to use this new tool, the benefits to individuals and businesses will include enabling a person to immediately receive a paycheck, or a company to instantly access funds when an invoice is paid."
The 51 counterparties represent most of the 57 institutions who participated in the Fed's pilot program for the system and were
Transactions will be capped at $500,000 for the initial rollout period, but participating institutions will start out with a $100,000 limit, which they can choose to increase. Those figures could change as the system matures.
The rollout of FedNow is the culmination of a process that began in 2013, when the Fed first announced its intention to create a real-time payment system. At the time, it noted that it expected the facility to launch in 2023 or 2024. Work on FedNow began in
The Fed has faced criticism from consumer advocates
More recently, FedNow has been the subject of a
Others in and around the banking sector have questioned whether the system might increase
FedNow is expected to compete with and complement the current, private instant settlement service: Real Time Payments, or RTP, which is operated by The Clearing House, which is itself owned by the largest banks in the country. Pricing for the two services will be largely the same.
While RTP has been available to banks and other institutions since 2017, some smaller banks have been skeptical of using a platform owned by their larger competitors. The rollout of FedNow is seen by many as a necessary step to making instant payment settlement ubiquitous throughout the U.S. banking system.
Early adopters for FedNow include:
- 1st Source Bank
- Adyen
- Avidia Bank
- BNY Mellon
- Bridge Community Bank
- Bryant Bank
- Community Bank of the Bay
- Consumers Cooperative Credit Union
- Corporate America Credit Union
- Eastern Corporate Federal Credit Union
- First Internet Bank of Indiana
- Global Innovations Bank
- HawaiiUSA Federal Credit Union
- INB
- JPMorgan Chase
- Mediapolis Savings Bank
- North American Banking Company
- Peoples Bank
- Pima Federal Credit Union
- Salem Five Bank
- Star One Credit Union
- United Bankers' Bank
- U.S. Bank
- U.S. Department of the Treasury's Bureau of the Fiscal Service
- Veridian Credit Union
- Wells Fargo Bank, N.A.
Institutions able to serve as settlement agents and liquidity providers include:
- Alloya Corporate Federal Credit Union
- Atlantic Community Bankers Bank
- BNY Mellon
- Bankers' Bank of the West
- Catalyst Corporate Federal Credit Union
- Community Bankers' Bank
- Millennium Corporate Credit Union
- PCBB
- Quad City Bank & Trust
- The Bankers Bank
Service providers who can serve banks and credit unions through FedNow include:
- ACI Worldwide Corp
- Alacriti
- Aptys Solutions
- BNY Mellon
- CSI
- ECS Fin Inc.
- Finastra
- Finzly
- FIS
- Fiserv Solutions, LLC (Fiserv NOW, Fiserv Payments Exchange)
- FPS Gold
- Jack Henry
- Juniper Payments, a PSCU Company
- Open Payment Network
- Pidgin, Inc.
- Temenos
- Vertifi Software, LLC