Long-awaited Fed digital payment system to launch in July

I wondered what kind of liquidity buffer participating institutions will have to provide in order to insure that instant payments really are instant, even in high demand situations, and found the following, which I don't find very satisfying:

> FedNow participants or their correspondents will be expected to maintain balances in their master accounts to settle FedNow transactions, consistent with the Federal Reserve’s Policy on Payment System Risk

That's from page 43 of the Customer Readiness Guide [1], linked from the FedNow service home page [2].

1. https://explore.fednow.org/resources?id=10&resourceRole=fi_s...

2. https://www.frbservices.org/financial-services/fednow

If the launch is anything like the UK Faster Payments Service then expect a two-tier system for some time until most banks are on onboard.

Really hoping this takes the pain out of moving money between accounts. Currently it's ridiculously convoluted and time consuming.

1. Add external account

2. Wait for two micro-deposits to external account

3. Confirm deposits with origin bank

Then you can pull money but can't push it.

Canada is almost as bad but at least the Interac system is pretty quick and allows you to send money to yourself. My bank in the US explicitly told me not to do that with Zelle.

Here's a role for their CBDC: https://rb.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/FRS/details/Lead-Appl...