FedNow Forms Request for Payment Working Group

An industry working group will encourage adoption of request for payment (RFP) functionality.

Formed by the Federal Reserve ahead of the launch of the FedNow Service, which is to happen in mid-2023, the Request for Payment (RFP) Work Group: Customer Experience will establish voluntary principles for a consistent end-user experience for solutions leveraging FedNow Service RFP functionality as well as considering other practices or standards, the Federal Reserve said in a Tuesday (Dec. 6) press release.

“RFP will be one of the key features of the FedNow Service,” the Federal Reserve said in the release. “It will allow financial institutions and service providers to build bill pay solutions that can help consumers and businesses conveniently send invoices, receive instant bill payments and better manage cash flow.”

The working group is composed of nearly 100 FedNow Community members and will meet monthly between the fourth quarter of 2022 and the second half of 2023.

It will outline recommended payer and payee experiences for businesses and consumers, provide input on practices for the Federal Reserve to consider and produce an RFP Customer Experience document that will be publicly available.

As PYMNTS reported Nov. 29, the FedNow instant payments system will be the culmination of an effort stretching out more than three-and-a-half years, a pilot program with more than 100 participants and the development and testing of multiple product features, functions and use cases.

The final months of the 120-member pilot program’s advisory phase — and the move, now, into the testing and certification phase — is the beginning of the reality of truly modern payments in the United States.

Tuesday’s announcement of the formation of the industry working group came about a month after the Federal Reserve announced pricing for the FedNow Service.

“To support widespread adoption of instant payments, the Federal Reserve is offering key pricing discounts for new FedNow Service customers in 2023,” the Federal Reserve said Nov. 8.