The Federal Reserve announced the creation of the FedNow Pilot Program to support development, testing and adoption of the FedNow Service. CUNA supports ongoing development of FedNow, a 24x7x365 interbank settlement service.

According to the Federal Reserve, this pilot program continues efforts to foster industry partnerships in the development of the new instant payments service.

Over the coming weeks, the Federal Reserve will accept expressions of interest in the pilot program from eligible members of the FedNow Community, including financial institutions, as well as service providers and payment processors that partner with financial institutions.

The pilot program will include three phases:

• Advisory;
• Testing; and
• Closed-loop production.

Throughout each of these phases and the subsequent launch of the FedNow Service, the Federal Reserve will call upon the entire group or subgroups of pilot participants to participate in discussions or demos, test the service, engage service providers or users, and conduct other activities as needed.

Additional participants may be added in later phases of the program to address evolving needs.