Analysis of FedNow Service One Year Later
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In the world of instant payments, the FedNow Service, launched by the U.S. Federal Reserve two years ago, has been making significant strides. As of mid-2025, over 1,400 financial institutions have adopted FedNow, supporting a growing volume of instant payments and innovative use cases within the U.S.
The platform, spearheaded by CEO and Founder Daniel Webber, has been a hot topic at recent forums, such as the Point Zero Forum held in Zurich this week. Webber discussed the state of cross-border payments and the potential impact of real-time payments, as well as the trajectory of real-time payments in the US and globally.
Despite this progress, FedNow is still a long way off its goal to onboard around 8,000 institutions in the US. While the number of certified service providers has increased from 17 to 32 since launch, only 40% of institutions have signed up to send payments. Many are going receive-only as an initial foray into adoption, indicating there is still work to be done to achieve the intended network effect.
Analysis of FedNow's list of onboarded institutions shows consistent growth month-on-month, with pace picking up over the last few months. As of the end of June, more than 800 financial institutions across the U.S. have adopted FedNow, a significant increase from the 35 participating institutions at launch.
FedNow is growing within the US domestic payments space, but there have been launches of cross-border instant payments in other regions. While FedNow has not been explicitly positioned as a cross-border payments rail yet, future potential for FedNow in cross-border payments may involve interoperability and indirect access through technologies such as XRP or integration with foreign payment rails, but direct FedNow cross-border capabilities are not currently established.
The Fedwire Funds Service, which is separate from FedNow and designed for large-value wire transfers (settling over $4.7 trillion daily), completed its ISO 20022 migration in mid-2025. ISO 20022 is an international messaging standard that enhances cross-border payment efficiency by enabling richer data exchange and better fraud compliance, which is expected to facilitate links with foreign payment systems such as SWIFT.
As multi-rail strategies combining FedNow with other systems like RTP are already common among U.S. banks to cover a wide range of payment needs, including potential cross-border transactions through other channels, the future of FedNow could become an integral part of the international payments ecosystem.
Daniel Webber believes that US businesses and consumers would benefit from an instant-payments led future, with services like FedNow enhancing the efficiency and speed of payments. To read the full report on the progress of FedNow, click the provided link.
- The growth of FedNow Service, a U.S. Federal Reserve initiative, has attracted interest from banking and insurance institutions, as more than 800 financial institutions have adopted it by the end of June 2025.
- In discussions about cross-border payments, FedNow's CEO, Daniel Webber, has hinted at potential future integrations with foreign payment rails or technologies like XRP, positioning FedNow as a contender in the global finance industry.
