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.theclearinghouse.org/payment-systems/rtp