Faster payments

Mastercard Inc. agreed to buy a payments platform owned by Denmark-based Nets for 2.85 billion euros ($3.19 billion), using its biggest-ever acquisition to help extend a push into faster payments.

The payments system, called FedNow, would go head-to-head against one built by big banks; the senator from Oregon wants Amazon to address vulnerabilities in its cloud data storage.

Addressing payment security and achieving interoperability with a rival, private-sector network are just some of the challenges the central bank faces in building a government-backed real-time payment system.

As part of its justification for developing its own government-backed system, the central bank said that leaving only a single fast network run by big banks constitutes a potential risk to the economy.

Community banks shouldn’t wait for the Fed to create a new real-time payments rail when consumers are already flocking to other options.

The CEO's tenure lasted just 18 months; the former FDIC chair says having Congress more involved in setting accounting standards "could well backfire on the banks."

Standardizing charge backs would make management easier, and merchants would only have to understand one set of protocols, which could also standardize responses, says Monica Eaton-Cardone, COO of Chargebacks 911 and CIO of its parent company Global Risk Technologies.

“It wouldn't be unusual” for the Federal Reserve to work alongside private-sector operators in the creation of a U.S. real-time payments system, its chairman said.

Community banks shouldn’t wait for the Fed to create a new real-time payments rail when consumers are already flocking to other options.

Two weeks after lawmakers grilled a Facebook exec over its crypto plans, they acknowledged there are benefits from digital currency technology and urged U.S. companies to take the lead.

If the Federal Reserve doesn't maintain an active role, Wall Street megabanks could take over the payments system.

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Readers react to BofA defending reverse mortgage borrowers, support the Federal Reserve creating a real-time payments system, advocate for consolidating federal bank agencies and more.

The CEO of a big-bank lobbying group recently said that the central bank may be on the verge of pulling a bait and switch on faster payments. But his comments glossed over a lot of the relevant history.

If the Federal Reserve doesn't maintain an active role, Wall Street megabanks could take over the payments system.

Lawmakers including presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren have introduced a bill that would put the Federal Reserve in charge of creating its own real-time payments network.

Whenever we have major industry changes generating uncertainty, it’s usually a safe bet that fraudsters find ways to manipulate the situation before we know how to secure it against them, writes Monica Eaton-Cardone, COO of Chargebacks 911 and CIO of its parent company Global Risk Technologies.

Swift completed a seven-country trial of its cross-border GPI Instant payment service resulting in the successful integration with Singapore’s domestic instant payment network FAST.

In immediate, unrestricted availability of funds, the only true providers are those networks operated by banks or other financial institutions, writes Jack Baldwin, CEO of Baldwin Hackett & Meeks.

The bank is taking a concept that has worked for years in the credit card world — artificial-intelligence-based fraud detection — and applying it to corporate customers' transactions.