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Comment by MBCook | Hacker News Reader

Or we could, you know, just have a reasonable government option. Like ACH for debit cards.

This seems like a perfect opportunity for a common good. Something to make transactions easier and cheaper and help keep the economy running.

But that would be big-government-communism-anti-jobs-whatever-people-are-mad-at. So that’s not how we do it.

We’re getting FedNow (eventually). Seems like you could built a debit card processor on top of that.

You may still need Visa/MC/whatever for international customers to use debit. But American has a lot of Americans doing debit from American bank accounts.

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> We’re getting FedNow (eventually)

It’s technically live [1].

[1] https://www.frbservices.org/financial-services/fednow/organi...

Right, I knew it had launched in the last few months. But most people don’t have it yet. None of the big banks are on that list.

It’ll just take time.

There is probably some backroom dealing regarding the future of TCH's RTP rails [1].

[1] https://www.theclearinghouse.org/payment-systems/rtp

I’m gonna be honest I’m a little worried that FedNow is too little too late. If it’s never widely deployed, people won’t know it exists and ask for it.

And that means the banks can continue to push their Venmo competitor Zelle. And I’m guessing they somehow make more money that way. Or maybe push people to their 1st Local Town Visa credit card offer, now with 0.05% cash back!

> that means the banks can continue to push their Venmo competitor Zelle. And I’m guessing they somehow make more money that way

The cost to send a request for payment is 10x on RTP what it is on FedNow [1].

Both of those are real-time settled, i.e. when you send a money from your bank, your bank no longer has the money the moment you send it. Zelle, on the other hand, isn't a payment rail--it settles over ACH [2]. The receiving bank may credit their customer as a courtesy. But the originating bank gets to hold onto the money and earn interest off it. (Technically, the receiving bank is paying interest on the credited funds. But that's why the credits are capped well below ACH's limits.)

At the end of the day, for FedNow to succeed it has to be a win for consumers. As in, would you change banks to get access to FedNow? (My bank doesn't support Zelle, for example.)

[1] https://www.crossriver.com/insights/comparing-rtp-and-fednow

[2] https://www.paymentsjournal.com/the-clearing-house-and-early...

I think you missed the Excel spreadsheet in the parent's link. Chase (under JPMORGAN CHASE BANK) and Wells Fargo are on that list.

Interestingly, the other 2 big banks—Citigroup and Bank of America—are missing. They both do support RTP though (which apparently is a different network operated by the same entity that backs ACH). Unsure if RTP is meant to compete with FedNow.

I did. That list is much more impressive.

Thank you.

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