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smnrchrds | on: Payments Canada announces launch of Canada's Real-Time Rail (RTR) payment system
Has FedNow had any visible effect in the US? Are bill payments and bank to bank transfers now happening instantaneously?
toast0 | parent | next
My credit unions now offer ach, same day ach, and instant transfers between them.

Same day ach launched with a user fee, so they usually prompt to confirm and offer to send it via normal ach instead, which I find amusing?

I also see instant transfer support at some other places I bank. I can't say if bill payment happens instantly or not, my finances don't run close to the edge, and I don't need to know exactly when a bill pay (which I generally schedule) is taken out and when it's applied; as long as both happen, I'm good.

toomuchtodo | parent
~$800B/year in annual volume run rate, as of this comment. You can move up to $10M per value message for less than 5 cents, with a max 20 second time to completion SLA.

https://www.frbservices.org/resources/financial-services/fed...

(i am contributing subject matter expertise to policymakers to make offering FedNow rails to financial services customers a requirement of having a banking license, so I'm a bit biased; this is the only way we'll get off of closed payment rails like Zelle, slow open rails like ACH, or expensive faster legacy credit card rails)

> Are bill payments and bank to bank transfers now happening instantaneously?

Walmart is currently rolling it out. I expect others to start to as you see them surcharge credit card payments (US mobile phone providers, internet providers, etc). It's trivial to build into an app experience, with or without a partner like Plaid (for example).

> “It surprised me,” Henry said of adoption of Walmart’s first iteration of pay-by-bank, which is available online but hasn’t been marketed to customers. “It’s certainly surpassed our expectations of the amount of customers that have registered and actually use the payment type.”

> Walmart’s upgraded pay-by-bank offering will be rolled out in 2025. The transactions will occur over bank technology provider Fiserv’s NOW Network, which integrates with The Clearing House’s Real Time Payments network and the Federal Reserve’s FedNow. Until now, large retailers hesitated to launch real time payment options because many banks were not connected to an instant settlement system, meaning their customers would not be able to use the product. NOW Network aims to connect to as many banks as possible to reach 100% of deposit accounts by combining its own network with RTP and FedNow.

Walmart Plans Instant Bank Payments, Cutting Out Card Networks - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41593450 - September 2024 (3 comments)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49632105 (additional citations)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49433164 (additional citations)

wasabi991011 | root | parent | next
Can you explain to me what The Clearing House is as an organization, and how many participate in their RTP? I have tried to look this up but can only find vague promotional material by banks.
toomuchtodo | root | parent
They are a consortium owned by 20 of the world’s largest commercial banks. They are a direct competitor to the Federal Reserve as it relates to payment infrastructure.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Clearing_House

https://www.moderntreasury.com/learn/tch

RTP has ~1260 participants as of mid 2026.

https://www.theclearinghouse.org/payment-systems/rtp/RTP-Par...

smnrchrds | root | parent | next
Has this lead to any user-visible changes? Like, can you pay your bills on the due date now instead of a couple of business days earlier, not having to worry about it arriving on time?
toomuchtodo | root | parent | next
The most visible change I've seen is that I can move funds instantly between my credit union (which I maintain solely for Zelle access at this time in my financial system) and Wise, for free, others would have to chime in for more pireps/ground truth on this which apps are getting this value in front of users.

https://www.frbservices.org/financial-services/fednow-servic... maintains a list of banks and financial service providers currently on FedNow rails.

reaperducer | root | parent
Like, can you pay your bills on the due date now instead of a couple of business days earlier

For at least ten years now.

You should visit America. It's nice.

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dcrazy | root | parent
Is ~800B a lot? It doesn’t sound like a lot in the context of the U.S. economy.
dghlsakjg | root | parent | next
Considering that Zelle is largely marketed for p2p and not as a general all-purpose payment mechanism, you need to compare it to Venmo or Square. For reference Venmo is on track for ~$400 billion this year.
toomuchtodo | root | parent
Draw your attention to YoY upward volume trajectory in my first citation in the comment you replied to. It is still "warming up." TAM is all existing check, ACH, Zelle, and credit card volume. Takes time for folks to get the warm fuzzies and migrate to new systems.

The faster merchants offer instant payments for making payments for free and surcharge credit card rails for payments (to cover the exorbitant cost), the faster volume moves over (imho).

Brazil's Pix (https://whatispix.com/) is what desired target end state looks like imho.

Brazil's Pix payment system faces pressure from Visa and Mastercard - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48052371 - May 2026 (383 comments)