“The biggest question surrounding the concept is why banks, who earn billions in their cut of credit and debit card interchange fees, would potentially undermine that revenue stream by providing Zelle as a cheaper alternative at the point of sale. But observers say U.S. financial institutions are wise to begin contemplating how their future roles will be shaped by rapid changes in the payments technology landscape, and crafting strategic responses.”

“Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) (BSE: 532540, NSE: TCS) has entered into a strategic partnership with Payments Canada, the country’s largest payment organization, to transform its payment system operations and help implement the Real-Time Rail (RTR), the new real-time payments system that will allow Canadians to initiate payments and receive irrevocable funds in seconds, 24/7/365.”

“The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), U.K’s financial regulator, has expressed concern over crypto exchange Binance gaining access to the country’s primary payments network, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday . Binance has secured a deal with payments group Paysafe to gain access to the Faster Payment Service, the U.K. network that allows consumers and businesses to make fast payments between financial services providers.”

“A Pay.UK spokesperson has confirmed that the Faster Payment System transaction limit has today increased from £250,000 to £1 million…This increase in transaction limit reflects demand from corporate customers and helps to provide greater choice in the market for those organisations wishing to make higher-value payments.”

“Consumers and businesses sent 1.8 billion payments through the Zelle Network® during 2021, an increase of 49% from a year earlier, Early Warning Services, LLC, the network operator behind Zelle®, announced today. Those payments totaled $490 billion, up 59%…Businesses, including property managers, contractors, and health and beauty providers, relied on Zelle® for sending and receiving money throughout the year. In 2021, payments received by small businesses increased 162% over the previous year’s totals. Fortune 500 companies, universities, and national non-profits also turned to Zelle® when disbursing funds to the public as a fast and safe alternative to sending checks.”

“Jack Henry & Associates, Inc. (NASDAQ: JKHY ), a leading provider of technology solutions and payment processing services primarily for the financial services industry, announced today that it is partnering with Early Warning Services, LLC, the network operator behind Zelle®, to make faster payments more readily available for minority-owned depository institutions (MDIs).”

“Canadian banks and credit unions are preparing for real-time payments with a test drive for businesses. Thirteen of the country’s financial institutions are launching an instant business-to-business payments service more than a year ahead of the rollout of the country’s fast payments system, the Real-Time Rail. The companies will run the service on the existing Interac e-Transfer platform, but they’ve added features such as fraud vetting and the global ISO 20022 payments messaging standard in an effort to wean more companies off paper checks and wire transfers. The new features are meant to address the limitations of e-Transfer, a next-day settlement system which is popular with consumers but hasn’t achieved significant business adoption.”

“Early Warning Services, LLC, the network operator behind Zelle®, announced its Q2 2021 transaction results, which include signed FIs representing more than 500 million DDA accounts. In Q2 2021, the Zelle Network® processed $120 billion on 436 million transactions. Year-over-year sent payment values increased by 68%, while payment transactions increased by 58%.”

“Mastercard has launched a cloud-native, real-time payment gateway designed to ease access for institutions connecting to the UK’s Faster Payments network. The PayPort+ gateway has been developed by Form3 and is now live with two UK financial institutions, including Nationwide Building Society.PayPort was launched in 2016 to offer financial institutions, large and small, connectivity into the UK Faster Payments network. The new product will now offer flexible connectivity options, including MQ, Restful APIs and Microservices.”

“Since the first discussions about faster payments unfolded in the U.S. more than seven years ago, a nagging question has been whether a system — or systems — could operate together under similar technology, security, operating rules and standards. The U.S. Faster Payments Council says the interoperability question has become the most important topic within the payments industry in the past few years. Nearly 80% of respondents to an online survey in 2019 and 71% in 2020 cited interoperability as “very important” across compatible faster payments systems, according to the council’s most recent research.”

“The U.S. Faster Payments Council (FPC), in partnership with Glenbrook Partners, today released the research report, Why Interoperability is Important to Faster Payments. The report is the latest part of a three-year, multifaceted industry study consisting of quantitative and qualitative research, launched by the FPC and Glenbrook in 2019.Published the last two years, the Faster Payments Barometer, an online survey of industry professionals, offered insights from businesses, financial institutions (FIs), consumer organizations, and payment providers. Results from both annual surveys indicated that industry stakeholders from across the value chain overwhelmingly believe interoperability is important for broader adoption of faster payments.”

“The U.S. Faster Payments Council (FPC), in partnership with Glenbrook Partners , today released the research report, Why Interoperability is Important to Faster Payments. The report is the latest part of a three-year, multifaceted industry study consisting of quantitative and qualitative research, launched by the FPC and Glenbrook in 2019.Published the last two years, the Faster Payments Barometer , an online survey of industry professionals, offered insights from businesses, financial institutions (FIs), consumer organizations, and payment providers. Results from both annual surveys indicated that industry stakeholders from across the value chain overwhelmingly believe interoperability is important for broader adoption of faster payments.”

“The Federal Reserve Board proposed a new set of rules Tuesday dealing with how funds transfers will be carried out over the central bank’s real-time payments service that is expected to become available in 2023. The Fed said the measure governing transfers on the new FedNow service would have similarities with the existing framework for the current Fedwire Funds Service. The proposal includes terms and conditions for how the Fed’s regional banks will process transfers over FedNow, and authorizes the regional banks to provide more detailed terms and conditions. The rule would also include a provision requiring FedNow participants that serve as the beneficiary’s bank to make funds available immediately, among other changes.”

“The European Central Bank has warned that the charges levied by banks for instant payments are proving a barrier to uptake and “must change”. Speaking at a payments forum hosted by Finland’s central bank, ECB board member Fabio Panetta notes that on the operational side, the Eurosystem has taken steps to ensure the pan-European reach of instant payments by the end of 2021 through the Target instant payments settlement service (TIPS).”

“The recent U.S. Faster Payments Council (FPC) Spring Conference offered an opportunity to hear from industry leaders about key developments in areas such as interoperability, fraud prevention and use case trends. A highlight of this virtual event was a discussion with Nick Stanescu, senior vice president and FedNow business executive and Steve Ledford, The Clearing House’s senior vice president for product and strategy, about their organizations’ instant payments infrastructures.”

“Financial technology leader FIS ® (NYSE: FIS) today announced RealNet ™, a new cloud-based, software as a service (SaaS) platform that will enable account-to-account (A2A) transactions for businesses, consumers and governments over real-time payment networks. The FIS RealNet platform will make it easier for organizations across all industries to send, receive and accept payments, whether they are engaging with a consumer or business, or with their own employees. The platform functions as a “network of networks,” utilizing a full range of existing domestic and cross-border payment rails to simplify and speed up the processing, clearing and settlement of payments. By using a smart-routing decision engine, FIS RealNet identifies the fastest, most cost-efficient payments option for a given transaction in real-time—whether ACH, same-day ACH, Wires and RTP®—and automates the end-to-end process.”

“Retailers are often considered to be key beneficiaries of faster payments, but they may be among the last to reap its benefits in the U.S. The latest advancements in real-time payments are focused on banks’ use cases. The Federal Reserveis advancing its real-time settlement service through testing with banks, and Visa is piloting two artificial intelligence-powered services that mimic the benefits of real-time payments. These tests emphasize a focus on P2P or B2B payments, which are essentially interactions between a customer and a bank. “Real-time payments are not here yet for merchants, but that focus is changing,” said John Drechny, CEO of the Merchant Advisory Group, which acts on its mission to educate merchants about the latest technology and regulatory developments. “Merchants have always envisioned faster payments as a more direct access [to funds] that could bemore secure and efficient for them with a push-payment aspect.”

“EBA Clearing has revealed that its RT1 platform has reached critical mass in Belgium for instant payments.The pan-European instant payment infrastructure system now counts six participants based in Belgium: Aion SA, BNP Paribas Fortis, Belfius, CBC Banque, ING Belgium and KBC Bank.EBA says that with this coverage, the vast majority of Belgian payment accounts are now reachable for euro instant payments from all across Europe.”