In an American Banker op-ed George Selgin of the Cato Institute and Aaron Klein of the Brookings Institution write a scathing critique of the Federal Reserve’s approach to faster payments; they argue that the U.S. payments network seems like it belongs to a developing nation; whereas the UK implemented real time payments in 2007 the Fed spent the next decade doing virtually nothing; the delay in the time to process a check promotes inequality as millions of poor Americans have to resort to payday loans or incur overdraft fees while waiting for their deposits to clear; while FedNow will help when it is finally implemented in 2024 the Fed should be doing more in the near term. American Banker
