Federal Reserve has launched the FedNow service on 20^th July 2023. It is a long-awaited high-speed transportation lane that allows bank transfers within seconds. The service greatly impacts the global banking industry as thousands of financial institutions can access this system.

This short answer will not be enough. So, if you are still curious about FedNow and want to know how it works, we have covered you. Below, you can find every little detail about FedNow!

What Is FedNow?

FedNow is an instant payment infrastructure created and backed by the US government. The system reduces the time needed to transfer the payments and makes the payments possible even on holidays and weekends. FedNow works more efficiently and quickly as compared to the Automated Clearing House (ACH) system, which allows businesses, government entities, and consumers to receive and send payments. The ACH system takes at least one to three days to process the transactions, while FedNow completes these payments within a few seconds.

If you already use different apps like Zelle or Venmo, receiving and sending payments instantly via FedNow may not seem novel. But, the fact is that with these apps, you can share the payments only within app accounts, while FedNow allows you to receive all of your payments directly into your bank account. Not only that, if you transfer the payment to your bank account from these apps, check deposit or direct deposit, you will have to wait for a few business days, and if there are holidays or weekends, the wait can be longer.

How Does FedNow Work?

FedNow works the same way as any other application works. And if you are still unsure about that, below is how FedNow works:

1. You will initiate the payment by using the banking application (which uses FedNow)
2. After that, the bank will check the payment and send the message to FedNow (either by service provide or directly) by using the standard ISO 20022
3. After verifying the payment, FedNow deposits the money to the account you want it to go to quickly

Remember that FedNow only allows payments up to $50000 within its network. But, the system sets the $100,000 as the default limit per transaction which every financial institution can adjust according to their business requirements and risk assessment.

Which Features Are Included In The FedNow Service?

Along with the integrated clearing functionality and round-the-clock availability, FedNow service also offers the following optional features depending on the desired participation type of the bank:

• Send And Receive: If a financial institute chooses the send and receive option, it can receive, send, and return customer payments. The bank can also receive or send credit transfers from other banks to support the instant payment liquidity needs.
• Liquidity Management Transfers: With this feature, the institutions can complete all the high-dollar limit credit transfers with other institutions at the set timings, even if the Fedwire Funds services are unavailable.
• Receive Only: If an institute chooses to receive only, they can only accept payments from other institutions to meet the liquidity needs.
• Settlement Services: With settlement services, the institutes can get full support for the respondent or correspondent relationships. More specifically, the FedNow transactions for the banks that use the correspondents will settle in the master account of the correspondent.

How Much Does FedNow Costs?

Federal Reserve released the fee and pricing details for the real-time settlement network in 2022. FedNow is a government-operated system. Therefore, it is mandated to break even but not get the profit. The advantage you can get is that it may offer you competitive pricing compared to other payment systems. The predicted charges include:

1. The $25 monthly participation charges for every routing transit number that gets the credit transfers
2. The $0.01 for the request for payment message that the requestor will pay. It includes both returns and payment messages.
3. There will also be $0.045 for each credit transfer fee that the sender will pay, including the returns.

Benefits And Drawbacks Of FedNow

The instant payment capabilities of FedNow offer you various benefits. Its major benefit is that the system supports many financial institutes, including the community and small banks. Aside from that, you can receive and send the payments easily and quickly. It gives more options to the people as they can manage the payment effectively. The flexibility is particularly helpful for a person on a tight budget. For example, if you get the payments or paycheck immediately instead of waiting for the days, you will not have to get the loans. Plus, as the FedNow streamlines the bill payment methods, people will not have to pay late fees.

On top of that, as the FedNow system verifies enough funds in the payer's account before processing any transaction, it protects against overdraft fees. The payment system facilitates cash flow and overall finances by instantly transferring funds from one account to another. Likewise, the system benefits businesses that can effectively control and forecast the cash flow. Besides that, financial institutes can also benefit from the lower processing prices by helping others. The system also benefits businesses with enhanced customer convenience, few errors, and better efficiency.

The drawback is that if you want to benefit from the FedNow services, all the institutes to whom you are sending the payments must use the FedNow services. For instance, if you have made a few payments but one of the institutes is not using the FedNow services, the payment will end up with an overdraft. It happens because the institute not using FedNow will process the transactions via ACH, which triggers the overdraft.

Conclusion:

With the help of FedNow, financial institutions can give real-time payment capabilities to their customers. So, from now on, the customers can transfer the payments within seconds, even outside normal banking hours. Plus, the platform lets customers receive their payback checks quickly. This instant payment service benefits businesses, government use cases, and consumers.