The US Federal Reserve is implementing Instant Payments in 2023 [1]. The system is already in beta testing [2], and its development is ahead of schedule [3], going live a full year earlier than first projected. Fintech sees the writing on the wall with Paypal moving into crypto and brokerage services, and Visa attempting to acquire Plaid to move away from payments. Payment revenue is going to (rightfully so) plummet as the Fed fixes antiquated plumbing and drags the US into the 21st century (54 other countries already have instant payment systems [4]).

One would expect banks and the Fed to eventually adopt similar infra that Europe is (per this submission), where card infra can use these Instant Payment ("FedNow") rails for C2C, C2B, and B2B payments (although, eventually, everyone will move to QR codes a la China; Zelle is beta testing QR code support for instant payments on their network [5]).

US payments currently suck, but I wanted to share that progress is being.

[1] https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2020/08/31/fednow-the-federa...

[2] https://www.pymnts.com/news/faster-payments/2021/five-banks-...

[3] https://www.frbservices.org/financial-services/fednow/blog/u...

[4] https://www.frbservices.org/financial-services/fednow/instan...

[5] https://www.zellepay.com/support/how-do-i-use-zelle-qr-code