WASHINGTON—Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) has expressed concern to Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell over the delay in implementing a real-time payment system in a letter this week and asked him a series of questions pertaining to the legislative and regulatory needs to get the system underway.
"The United States' outdated payment system imposes significant and unnecessary costs on Americans, leading consumers to incur billions of dollars a year in fees associated with the delayed movement of funds," he wrote.
Van Hollen asked Powell what regulatory, legislative and industry actions are needed for the Fed to implement real-time payments, and if the Fed will commit to acting on the report released by the Faster Payments Task Force, among other questions.
Van Hollen expects a response on these questions by Sept. 11.
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NAFCU, which has served on the both the Fed's Faster Payments and Secure Payments Task Forces as a part of the Fed's "Strategies for Improving the U.S. Payment System,” said it has encouraged the Fed to play an operational role in a future, faster payments system.
Most recently, NAFCU noted it commented on a proposal to create a nonprofit association – the U.S. Faster Payments Council – that would coordinate efforts to achieve interoperability and broad adoption of faster payment solutions. The goal of this council is to facilitate the creation of a ubiquitous, faster payments system in 2020 in which “Americans can conduct their payments safely and securely anywhere and at any time.”