The Federal Reserve Banks today announced the formation of a FedNow Community group for their upcoming instant payment offering, the FedNow Service. Despite the challenges that have come with the coronavirus, work on the FedNow Service remains on schedule for a 2023 or 2024 service launch.
“While we work to support the industry and our customers during this difficult time, we want to ensure that our collaboration with industry stakeholders on FedNow features and functionality continues on a virtual basis,” said Kenneth C. Montgomery, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston first vice president and chief operating officer and FedNow program executive. “The FedNow Community will help influence FedNow Service design and our development roadmap by providing input on desired service features, technology and implementation plans.”
The Federal Reserve seeks active participation from a variety of organizations that will represent the key constituents of the FedNow Service ecosystem. The FedNow Community is open to individuals who are interested in committing time and expertise to contribute to the success of the FedNow Service. Interested individuals should submit the FedNow Community participant profile form, detailing relevant experience, expertise and their organization’s role in faster payments. Over the course of developing the FedNow Service, the Federal Reserve will call upon the group, either the entire membership or specific members with needed expertise, to provide insights via focus groups, work groups, conference calls, virtual meetings, surveys and other channels. Even after gathering and traveling are safe again, face-to-face meetings are expected to be limited to key strategic milestones. Enrolled members will receive an invitation to the FedNow Community kickoff online webinar planned for this summer.
About the FedNow Service
The FedNow Service will support financial institutions’ provision of end-to-end faster payment services to their customers by allowing real-time, payment-by-payment, final settlement of interbank obligations through debits and credits to financial institutions’ balances in their accounts at the Reserve Banks. The service will incorporate clearing functionality into the process of settling each payment, allowing financial institutions to exchange the information needed to make debits and credits to customer accounts and notify customers of completed (or failed) payments. Access will be provided through the Federal Reserve’s FedLine® network, which serves more than 10,000 financial institutions directly or through their agents. For more information, visit FRBservices.org.
