The “state” of — well, anything — refers to its condition, the attributes and even the state of “mind” that denotes where we are at any given time on an endeavor. Might the state of faster payments be described as “conflicted?”
Consider the sheer number of rails that exist today, where financial services infrastructures in the U.S. may be perceived as being a bit behind the demand of consumers. After all, we live in a world that is always on, and where we expect instant satisfaction.
That can be a problem when, by and large, payments as an industry still operates through what might be termed as “a batch process.” However, the industry is evolving — quickly — to embrace speed, and it is expected for there to be as many as 56 real-time payment schemes live or underway by the end of next year.
Stateside, more recently, the Federal Reserve has thrown its hat in the ring, seeking commentary over real-time payments, with support already from Google and Amazon, as documented in this space. NACHA and Same Day ACH debuted EXACT DATE to enable same-day settlements through three settlement windows, and are currently exploring options to extend that availability on weekends and holidays. Visa and Mastercard, via their debit rails, enable real-time push payments in support of a number of peer-to-peer (P2P) and business-to-peer (B2P) use cases.