Moving the Needle Toward Instant Payments
In fall 2018, after considering requests from industry stakeholders, the Federal Reserve Board requested comment via a Federal Register notice (Off-site) on potential actions the Federal Reserve could take to facilitate interbank settlement of instant payments.
In response, the Board received more than 400 comments (Off-site) from a wide variety of stakeholders in the U.S. payment system, including financial institutions, individuals, consumer organizations, merchants, service providers, private-sector operators, fintech companies and trade organizations. Of those expressing an opinion, the overwhelming majority called for the Federal Reserve to operate a real-time, interbank gross settlement service for instant payments.
The following year, the Federal Reserve Board announced that the Reserve Banks would develop the FedNowSM Service (Off-site), a new 24x7x365 instant payment service to help bring the benefits of safe, efficient instant payments to communities across the country. The decision to develop the service was based on an assessment of public input and policy criteria regarding the Federal Reserve’s role in the U.S. payment system.
Progress on the FedNow Service
Explore key milestones in the development of the FedNow Service below.
The Federal Reserve announced plans to develop the FedNow Service (Off-site) to enable financial institutions of every size, and in every community across the U.S., to provide safe and efficient instant payment services in near real time, around the clock, every day of the year.
The Federal Reserve announced the service’s features and functionality (Off-site). Industry feedback and in-depth analysis, including more than 180 comment letters (Off-site) in response to the August 2019 Federal Register notice, helped determine features and design.
The Federal Reserve announced organizations that will participate in the FedNow Pilot Program (Off-site). This program supports the collaborative development, testing and adoption of the service while encouraging development of services and use cases that leverage FedNow Service functionality.
The Federal Reserve amended the industrywide launch timing for its instant payments platform to 2023. The announcement narrows the delivery timeframe by a full year (Off-site), updating a previous notice in 2019 that indicated industrywide availability in 2023 or 2024.
The Federal Reserve released message specifications for the initial launch of its FedNow Service. The FedNow ISO® 20022 specifications (Off-site) define the message flows and formats that the service will leverage when operational in 2023.
The Federal Reserve announced the launch of the FedNow Explorer website (Off-site). From instant payment basics and how the FedNow Service works, to information about features, functionality and use cases, the FedNow Explorer digital experience offers the information and guidance needed to plan for the future of payments.
The Federal Reserve announced the beginning of onboarding and pilot participants (Off-site) onto the FedNow Service. Several pilot organizations successfully connected and delivered test messages over a pilot version of the service.
The Federal Reserve narrowed the timing (Off-site) of the FedNow Service launch to mid-year 2023, targeting a production rollout of the service in the May to July timeframe. This further defined the previously communicated 2023 launch window for the instant payments service.
The Federal Reserve Board officially announced 2023 pricing for the FedNow Service (Off-site), detailing participation fees and costs related to customer credit transfers, request for payment and liquidity management transfers.
The Federal Reserve announced that the FedNow Service will start operating in July (Off-site) and provided details on preparations for launch, including an overview of the customer testing and certification program for early adopters.
The Federal Reserve announced that the FedNow Service is now live (Off-site). Banks and credit unions of all sizes can sign up to instantly transfer money for their customers, any time of the day, on any day of the year. Since launch, the network continues to build momentum (Off-site) across the industry.
Stay Engaged
Wherever you are in your instant payments journey, FedNow Explorer (Off-site) provides a customized learning path with frequently updated resources and tools to meet your needs.
To help inform the development of the FedNow Service, join the FedNow Community (Off-site) by submitting the participant profile form (Off-site). If you do not wish to commit to the FedNow Community but would like to receive FedNow Service communications, please submit the FedNow Service Interest Form (Off-site).