This summer, the U.S. began an ambitious experiment: a real-time payments system called FedNow. Built by the Federal Reserve, FedNow is designed to accelerate transactions for the digital age, bringing to businesses and banks the fast payments that consumers enjoy through mobile services such as Zelle or Venmo. If FedNow succeeds, it could eventually serve as America’s speedy payments backbone.
Changing an entire country’s digital payments architecture is a huge undertaking. Policymakers might be tempted to look to Silicon Valley for guidance. However, they’d be better served by looking for inspiration in India, where a similar payments transformation is well underway.
