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by xterminator 338 days ago
Each country central bank should have its own national payment processing system. Why is this not a thing? Spain has Bizum, for example.
3 comments

FedNow is relatively new for the US in 2024.

One thing to note is that by design, the US banking system is very decentralized and that makes any sort of migration or mandate like herding cats. There are 141 banks in Spain and 4135 in the US.

US banks are generally not allowed to exceed 10% of deposits through mergers and there are only three passing that threshold; JPMorgan Chase at 15%, BofA at 14%, and Wells Fargo at 11%.

The EU has already figured this out with the recently passed instant payments regulation [0]. As of 2024 are 5,304 banks in the EU [1], so the number of banks really isn’t an excuse. The US banking system lags the rest of world by a mile, because there is no will to force modernization.

[0] https://www.ecb.europa.eu/paym/integration/retail/instant_pa...

[1] https://www.ebf.eu/factsandfigures/

The regulation passed in 2024 which is the same year as FedNow. Am I missing something?
FedNow is a technological solution for instant payments, not a regulation. It’s a voluntary system for the banks to join. Further, banks are not required to offer instant payment services to their customers. The analogous technological solution in the EU is TIPS [0], which has been operational since 2018.

The IPR is a regulation that requires banks to support instant payments and offer them to customers.

[0]: https://www.ecb.europa.eu/paym/target/tips/html/index.en.htm...

Bizum is for P2P instant payments and it’s operated by a consortium of Spanish banks, not Banco de España.
Bizum can be used for B2C payments, and there're gateways for online purchases.
Totally agree. I wish we have something like Pix in Japan.

Their transaction fee is quite cheap, so small businesses earn more money and reinvest their revenue, rather than having it taken by Visa or Mastercards.