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The U.S. is steadily building the foundation of a nationwide faster payments system, but not all of the pieces are connected. Many of the elements developed independently, with influence from across the globe.
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Visa Direct

The Visa Direct payments platform is built on technology the card network has used overseas for 15 years. In the U.S., Visa began working towards faster payments with a 2011 mandate that issuers accept original credit transactions.
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Mastercard's Big Investment

In June, Mastercard made a $920 million investment in VocaLink, a U.K.-based company that powers faster payments initiatives in the U.K., Singapore and other regions.
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The Clearing House

The Clearing House, an ACH network operator, is working with providers such as FIS and VocaLink to create a real-time payments system for the benefit of U.S. banks.
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NACHA

Nacha has pushed for years for faster ACH payments, but until recently its proposal was blocked by the biggest U.S. banks. Nacha eventually overcame this obstacle, and its Same Day ACH rule takes effect Sept. 23, 2016, with the Fed setting its own plan to coincide with that deadline (Pictured: Nacha President and CEO Jan Estep).
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Dwolla

Dwolla's pitch for faster payments: It's already built. Its FiSync protocol for faster payments has been in place since 2012 as an alternative for ACH (Pictured: Dwolla CEO Ben Milne).
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Fed Brings Focus

The Fed's Faster Payments Task Force, founded in 2013, is working to bring all parties together to create "a process to facilitate this dialogue of faster payments for the U.S. in a way that it would not compete with market developments," said Sean Rodriguez, SVP and faster payments strategy leader for the Federal Reserve System (pictured).
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ClearXchange

Early Warning's clearXchange was developed in 2011 by JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo as a P-to-P network, but has since aspired to greater ambitions. ClearXchange's work in faster payments brings with it the support of the nation's largest banks.
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