“A joint research effort between the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology into the technical feasibility of a potential central bank digital currency is now complete. The Boston Fed’s work on CBDC with MIT’s Digital Currency Initiative is known as Project Hamilton. Boston Fed Executive Vice President Jim Cunha said the now-concluded project was “agnostic” from the start about any future policy decisions regarding new technologies and U.S. currency.”

“In preparation for the mid-2023 FedNow Service launch, the Federal Reserve has formed an industry working group to establish voluntary principles for a consistent end-customer experience for solutions leveraging FedNow Service request for payment (RFP) functionality, and to consider other practices or standards that may be useful to encourage broad adoption of RFP functionality across the industry. RFP will be one of the key features of the FedNow Service. It will allow financial institutions and service providers to build bill pay solutions that can help consumers and businesses conveniently send invoices, receive instant bill payments and better manage cash flow. The working group, composed of nearly 100 FedNow Community members (PDF) , will meet monthly between Q4 2022 and the second half of 2023 to outline recommended payer and payee experiences for business and consumers, and provide input on practices for the Federal Reserve to consider. The working group will also produce an “RFP Customer Experience” document that will be publicly available.”

“Central banks around the world have made massive investments into CBDC’s research. The FED, despite lagging behind other peers in the race, has sharply ramped up efforts to issue its CBDC in recent times. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York has completed a successful pilot of the use of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) for wholesale, cross-border transactions. The experiment, also known as Project Cedar: Phase One, aims to explore the capabilities of blockchain technology in payment delivery and the application of CBDC in wholesale payments. Conducted on separate blockchains to explore the capabilities of blockchain technology in delivering fast and safe payments for a lower settlement cost, the FED is now taking blockchain seriously.”

The Federal Reserve Board on Thursday announced pricing, effective January 3, 2023, for payment services the Federal Reserve Banks provide to depository institutions, such as the clearing of checks, ACH transactions, and wholesale payment and settlement services…The Board also announced the 2023 pricing for the FedNow^SM Service, a real-time payments platform, which is targeted to launch between May and July next year. The pricing is substantially similar to the anticipated pricing announced on January 27, 2022.

“The Federal Reserve Board on Monday finalized updates to the Board’s rule concerning debit card transactions. Pursuant to statute, the updates specify that debit card issuers should enable at least two payment card networks to process all debit card transactions, including “card-not-present” transactions, such as online payments. 1 The final rule is substantially similar to the proposal issued last year. By law, the Board is required to make rules ensuring that debit card issuers give merchants the opportunity to choose between at least two unaffiliated networks when routing debit card transactions. When the Board initially issued the rule in July 2011, the market had not developed solutions to broadly support multiple networks for card-not-present debit card transactions. Since that time, technology has evolved to address these barriers. However, some debit card issuers have not yet enabled at least two unaffiliated networks for merchants to choose between when routing such transactions. This issue has become increasingly pronounced because of continued growth in online payments.”

“Federal Reserve Financial Services today launched the FedPayments® Insights Service, a business and analytics tool that generates reports on a financial institution’s payments settled through the FedACH Service to help the organization advance its business strategy and day-to-day ACH operations. “In recent years, ACH transactions have grown in both volume and total value,” said Keith Melton, senior vice president and head of product management, Federal Reserve Financial Services. “As a result, it’s more important than ever before for financial institutions to analyze their ACH payment trends to help inform operational, risk management and strategic decisions. The FedPayments Insights Service provides a comprehensive, easy-to-access view of an institution’s daily and historical FedACH activity, including government and commercial transactions.””

“The Federal Reserve Banks have narrowed the timing of the FedNow Service launch to mid-year 2023, specifically targeting a production rollout of the service in the May to July timeframe. This further defines the previously communicated 2023 launch window for the anticipated instant payments service and comes as the FedNow Pilot Program prepares to enter technical testing for the service starting in September. “Today, with the FedNow launch date in sight, we are pleased with the collaboration and dedication our pilot participants have brought to advance modern payments in America,” said Esther George, president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City and executive sponsor of the FedNow program. Currently, more than 120 organizations are participating in the FedNow Pilot Program. Recent newcomers include U.S. Bank, Exchange Bank, and several payment processors and solution providers, including Alacriti Payments LLC, ECS Fin Inc., Form3 and ModusBox, Inc.”

“The Federal Reserve Board on Monday announced final guidelines that could open up a path for institutions peddling new types of financial products, or those with novel charters, to tap into the banking system. Why it matters: The guidelines seek to clarify a longstanding question critical to the crypto industry — who is allowed to have a master account. Such accounts would allow crypto banks and fintech platforms to access the central bank’s rails (payments and services) without partnering with a traditional bank.”

“The Federal Reserve today announced the addition of several organizations to the FedNow Service Pilot Program. The participants are joining more than 120 other organizations amid the program’s testing phase, which began earlier this year and will continue through the launch of the FedNow Service in 2023. The new pilot participants include the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service, Exchange Bank, and several payment processors and solution providers, including Alacriti Payments LLC, ECS Fin Inc., Form3 and ModusBox, Inc.”

“A bipartisan group of US lawmakers wants the Federal Reserve to get more serious about issuing a digital dollar to compete with rivals like China’s digital yuan. Democrat Rep. Maxine Waters has drafted legislation that aims for the Fed to further study the prospect of a digital dollar and design a route for it to come to fruition, The Wall Street Journal reported.  It comes after Waters, who is chair of the House Financial Services Committee, called the area of central bank digital currencies “a new digital assets space race.” Another supporter of the digital-dollar effort, Republican Rep. French Hill, cited China’s creation of a digital yuan in 2020 as a concern, noting Beijing’s lending around the world could aid its adoption and threaten the dollar’s dominance.”

“In the last 12 months, American consumers have used slightly more cash for transactions than they did at this time last year. This rise in cash usage along with a small increase in purchases and peer-to-peer payments made in-person may imply that some consumers are moving back to the way they did business prior to COVID-19. The rise in cash payments is one key finding from a recent survey the Federal Reserve Banks of San Francisco and Atlanta conducted to better understand U.S. consumers’ payment behavior. Additional key findings from the Diary of Consumer Payment Choice highlight how consumer cash preferences have changed during the pandemic: In October 2021, the average number of cash payments increased from six to seven payments per month and accounted for 20 percent of all payments, up from 19 percent in 2020 and down from 26 percent in 2019. The share of in-person purchases and person-to-person payments increased to 82 percent, up from 80 percent in 2020 and down from 87 percent in 2019. The value of cash held in a consumer’s pocket, purse, or wallet averaged $67 in 2021, compared to $76 in 2020 and $60 in 2019. The value of cash held in a consumer’s home, car, or elsewhere remained elevated at $347, compared to $299 in 2020 and $241 in 2019.”

“Americans are piling up credit card debt as they struggle to keep up with the high cost of living. US household debt surpassed $16 trillion for the first time ever during the second quarter, the New York Federal Reserve said Tuesday. Even as borrowing costs surge, the NY Fed said credit card balances increased by $46 billion last quarter. Over the past year, credit card debt has jumped by $100 billion, or 13%, the biggest percentage increase in more than 20 years. Credit cards typically charge high interest rates when balances aren’t fully paid off, making this an expensive form of debt.  The NY Fed said the credit card binge at least partly reflects inflation as prices rise at the fastest pace in more than four decades.”

“UL Solutions, a global leader in applied safety science, today announced its collaboration with Iliad Solutions, a company that helps test and launch payment solutions. The collaboration combines independent third-party services from UL Solutions with Iliad’s testing platform to offer optional support features for financial institutions and processors implementing the FedNow Service. Launching in 2023, the FedNow Service is a new instant payment system under development by the Federal Reserve… Iliad’s established testing platform has proven successful with top-tier providers of solutions to national real time payment schemes. UL Solutions currently delivers multiple large-scale secure virtual laboratories and hosted models for numerous central banks, government organizations, international and U.S. domestic payment brands, top-tier issuers and acquirers, payment service providers and ATM and point-of-sale (POS) terminal vendors. While the Iliad platform tests for ISO 20022, an international standard for exchanging electronic messages between financial institutions, and application programming interface (APIs), UL Solutions brings expertise in designing, operating and maintaining testing platforms and environments. Their combined offerings can help enable financial institutions and processors implementing the FedNow Service to securely launch and host.”

“In remarks delivered to a research conference hosted by the Federal Reserve Board, Fed Chair Jerome Powell discussed the international role of the U.S. dollar as well as the role a central bank digital currency (CBDC) might have in the future… The adoption of a U.S. CBDC, according to Powell, would improve on an already safe and efficient domestic payments system. “As the Fed’s white paper on this topic notes, a U.S. CBDC could also potentially help maintain the dollar’s international standing.” Powell emphasized the importance of considering not just what the global financial system needs now, but where it will be and what it will need in the next five to ten years.”

“The Federal Reserve Board on Thursday finalized a rule that governs funds transfers over the Federal Reserve Banks’ FedNow℠ Service. The final rule is substantially similar to the proposal from last year, with a few clarifications in response to comments. The FedNow Service is a new 24x7x365 interbank settlement service with clearing functionality to support instant payments in the United States and is expected to be available in 2023. The final rule provides a comprehensive set of rules governing funds transfers over the FedNow Service and provides legal certainty and clarity on the rights and obligations of parties to a transfer over the FedNow Service.”

“The 2021 Diary of Consumer Payment Choice (Diary) finds that the COVID-19 pandemic has continued to affect the way U.S. consumers use and hold cash. The share of payments made in cash dropped sharply from 2019 to 2020 and then increased slightly in 2021, implying that cash use hit its lowest point in the first pandemic year. In contrast to cash use, consumers’ cash holdings remained elevated in 2021 when compared to 2019 and prior years, indicating that consumers continued to demand cash in the uncertain environment of the pandemic’s second year.”

“The Federal Reserve has officially started onboarding pilot participants onto the FedNow Service, signaling that the initial testing phase of the FedNow Pilot Program is underway. A few organizations have now successfully connected and delivered test messages over a pilot version of the FedNow Service, marking a key milestone for the service, which remains on course to launch in 2023.  “The FedNow Service pilot participants, including financial institutions of all sizes, processors and correspondents, have been working hard at every step of this journey,” said Nick Stanescu, senior vice president and business executive of the FedNow Service. “Though much work remains, this progress sets the stage for thousands of financial institutions to be up and running with instant payments in the near future, including those that work with third-party payment providers.””

“The Federal Reserve Board on Wednesday invited public comment on proposed guidelines to evaluate requests for accounts and payment services at Federal Reserve Banks (“Account Access Guidelines”). Recent years have seen the introduction of new financial products and delivery mechanisms for traditional banking services, notably leveraging emerging technologies, including from institutions with novel types of banking charters designed to support such innovation. To facilitate these activities, some such institutions have requested access to the payments system offered by Federal Reserve Banks.”

“The Federal Reserve Board on Tuesday announced its intent to maintain the current schedule of prices for most payment services that the Federal Reserve Banks provide to depository institutions (priced services) in 2021. This approach recognizes the uncertainties created by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the difficulty in applying standard forecasting tools in this environment.”

“A senior Federal Reserve official has warned that the rebound in the world’s largest economy is in danger of stalling as a result of the recent spike in coronavirus infections across several large US southern and western states. In an interview with the Financial Times, Raphael Bostic, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, whose district covers some of the regions hardest hit by the current outbreaks, including Florida, said high-frequency data had shown a “levelling off” of economic activity both in terms of business openings and mobility.”