The FedNow Service is a new instant payment service that the Federal Reserve Banks are developing to enable financial institutions of every size, and in every community across the U.S., to provide safe and efficient instant payment services in real time, around the clock, every day of the year. Through financial institutions participating in the FedNow Service, businesses and individuals will be able to send and receive instant payments conveniently, and recipients will have full access to funds within seconds, giving them greater flexibility to manage their money and make time-sensitive payments. Consistent with the Federal Reserve’s historical role of providing payment services alongside private-sector providers, the FedNow Service will provide choice in the market for clearing and settling instant payments as well as promote resiliency through redundancy. Financial institutions and their service providers will be able to use the service as a springboard to provide innovative instant payment services to customers. We will update this page as we have more information about this new service, which is under development and will continue to evolve.
Implementing the FedNow Service in an efficient and safe manner remains a high priority for the Federal Reserve. While the target release date remains 2023 or 2024, we intend to announce specific launch timing once we complete additional development work. The FedNow Service will be deployed in phases so that the initial service can be launched expeditiously with additional features and enhancements released in stages after the initial launch. This phased approach will allow for adjustments and improvements in response to industry needs or changes in technology.
The Federal Reserve reached a milestone in the development of the FedNow Service with the August 6, 2020, announcement of the service’s features and functionality. Industry feedback and in-depth analysis, including over 180 comment letters (Off-site) in response to the August 2019 Federal Register notice (Off-site), helped drive the FedNow Service features and design. Read the Board’s press release (Off-site) for more information on the latest Federal Register notice, which provides the full FedNow Service description.
The initial FedNow Service launch will include:
After the initial service launch, we hope to offer additional features related to fraud prevention, error resolution and case management. We will continue to explore other features, including potential support for person-to-person payments that use the alias of a receiver. Ongoing engagement with the industry, including a pilot program, will play a role in our implementation plans.
The figure below illustrates a completed payment over the FedNow Service in its simplest form. This process is designed to take place within seconds.
The first release of the FedNow Service will provide baseline functionality that will support market needs for a range of use cases, including those that are gaining in usage like account-to-account (A2A) transfers and bill pay. Learn more about specific use cases below.
Account-to-account (A2A) use case (PDF)
For more information, please review the FedNow Service product sheet (PDF) and frequently asked questions (Off-site). Keep up with the latest FedNow news and instant payments education on the FedNow Service page. To help inform the development of the FedNow Service, join the FedNow Community by submitting our participant profile form. If you do not want to commit to the FedNow Community but would like to receive the latest FedNow news, please sign up to receive FedNow emails.