Faster payments

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

House lawmakers go light on BB&T-SunTrust merger; Santander Bank names longtime MUFG Union executive its CEO; the fintechs trying to solve America's retirement problem; and more from this week's most-read stories.

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.

Often overlooked as prospects by financial services institutions who have increasingly focused on the wealthy, hourly workers represent a massive pool of underserved consumers with distinct financial needs.

The pressure on banks, financial institutions and payment service providers to act as effective gatekeepers in the fight against financial crime is intense. Real-time payments considerably complicates that challenge, writes Sophie Lagouanelle, head of solutions at Accuity.

Banks don't compete with each other enough to effectively lead the move to faster payments in the U.S., argues CMSPI's Mark Horwedel.

The Clearing House's Real-Time Payments hasn't grown as fast as it would like, but recent small-bank adoption is providing momentum for a network that assumes the Federal Reserve won't start its own real-time service.

The payments space is expected to see continued consolidation, new fraud patterns and more contactless cards for the second half of 2019.

Brazil is the latest Latin American country to establish plans for a low-cost instant payments network with the aim of increasing financial inclusion and eliminating cash from the economy.

Over time, real-time payments could become the predominant payment type while virtually eliminating cash and checks.

The U.S. still relies on antiquated payment processing technologies while other countries can process in real time. What's the holdup?

On-demand wage delivery has caught on in other industries. Banks have taken notice.

Mobile technology has improved the process of sending cross-border remittances, but most international money transfer services still have a long way to go before they’re streamlined and real-time.