The Federal Reserve is to develop a real time payment and settlement platform, FedNow Service, to support faster payments in the US.
The go-live date of the service is expected to be in 2023 or 2024.
According to the Federal Reserve, faster payment services have the potential to become widely used and to yield economic benefits for individuals and businesses by providing them with more flexibility to manage their money and make time-sensitive payments.
The board is requesting comment on how the new service might be designed to most effectively support the full set of payment system stakeholders and the functioning of the broader US payment system.
The board is also intending to expand its Fedwire Funds Service and National Settlement Service hours, to facilitate liquidity management in private-sector real-time gross settlement services for faster payments and to support a wide range of payment activities, beyond those related to faster payments.
Lael Brainard, board governor of the Federal Reserve, said: "Everyone deserves the same ability to make and receive payments immediately and securely, and every bank deserves the same opportunity to offer that service to its community. FedNow will permit banks of every size in every community across the country to provide real-time payments to their customers."
