Faster payments

The U.K. got an earlier start on open banking implementations, prompting European merchants and fintechs to turn to payments-as-a-service providers for rapid deployment.

Retailers are often considered to be key beneficiaries of faster payments, but they may be among the last to reap its benefits in the U.S.

Instant payouts for gig workers have been gaining traction globally for the last five years, but Canada lacked many options until COVID-19 struck.

The central bank aims to roll out FedNow sometime in 2023, which is more optimistic than its previous timetable. The official leading the project noted progress in developing the infrastructure and its compatibility with private-sector solutions.

The card network is testing two artificial intelligence-powered programs that it says give banks some of the benefits of faster payments without requiring the immediate movement of funds.

The card network is testing two artificial intelligence-powered programs that it says give banks some of the benefits of faster payments without requiring the immediate movement of funds.

Many financial institutions have made initial moves into real-time payments via P2P services, and the use cases will jump over time, says Fiserv's Matt Wilcox.

While there has been a general trend of paying people faster for work already performed, starting with gig workers, COVID-19 has created (or exposed) many issues that are fueling the shift toward on-demand pay, especially for hourly workers.

Faster payments haven't always lived up to the hype and promise because of development and adoption stagnation in the U.S., but the idea of speedier transactions is becoming more popular.

TransferGo will use Mastercard's push payment service to support near real-time money transfers for European customers.

High profile companies like Facebook, Square and PayPal have brought attention to using cryptocurrency for payments — but speed is more important than buzz in getting stores to view crypto as tender, according to a group of developers who are building connections to merchants.

With Brazil's Central Bank launching the PIX instant payments network Monday, Uber and Ebanx quickly announced they are expanding their partnership to enable Brazilians to make instant payments through PIX for Uber rides and Uber Eats orders.

Our collective work on the real-time payments front is not for naught. That is because the consumer and business needs are evolving, says Bottomline's Jessica Cheney.

Real-time payments carry a trove of valuable data for supply chains, and a way for card networks to grow beyond card-dependent revenue. The collaboration between Payments Canada and Mastercard’s Vocalink will go a long way toward both ends.

Brazil aims to move beyond the era of cash payments on Monday, when the Banco Central do Brasil launches the Brazil Instant Payment System.

A California startup and a century-old Missouri bank, which began using The ClearingHouse's real-time payments network this summer, say businesses have embraced the technology to pay suppliers and gig-economy workers and quickly close real estate deals.

Two smaller banks with strikingly different roots — a startup financial institution in Irvine, Calif., and a century-old Missouri-based bank — are seeing similar trends emerge around demand for real-time payments.

Several large mobile point of sale projects are hitting the market at once to reach financially troubled retailers, with JPMorgan Chase making use of a three-year-old acquisition to push back against the technology firms that have been gobbling up small-business clients.

Capital markets play a key role in a modern economy because they move money, stocks or bonds from people who have them to those who need them to execute trades, secure equities or invest. But as core a function as this is, it hasn't been very fast.