After much anticipation, the Federal Reserve has at long last released their blueprint for faster payment processing in the United States. Despite the Fed’s caution and wary approach, those in the payment processing industry, especially those with payday loan merchant accounts, are eagerly anticipating the modernization of payment in the United States.
Many merchants operating with a payday loan merchant account from eMerchantBroker lament the settling and clearance process which can take up to two days to process. The US transaction networks are woefully behind the times especially when compared to countries like the UK where payment is processed in almost real-time. While real-time payment processing may be far-off from where the Federal Reserve is now in terms of planning, merchants and the payment industry as a whole are hopeful for same-day settling in the near future.
The biggest challenge facing the Fed is to make a unified system which operates for thousands upon thousands of interested payment parties without fragmenting the system. There is a common need and a common goal, yet the process of achieving efficient results is hardly agreed upon within the industry. As a result, the Fed has called for task forces comprised of payment industry executives to formulate a cohesive plan to speed up and modernize the US transaction networks. Critics have claimed the task forces will be largely ineffective due to practical objectives.
EMB’s payday loan merchant accounts would surely benefit from a faster transaction network as would nearly all payment processors. The Fed’s plan is a step in the right direction, but time will tell whether it results in decisive and deliberate action. The payment industry wants a faster processing system, but the task of creating such a network is monumental considering all of the interested parties. Yet, the new blueprint released by the Fed is a positive sign that the US financial networks are moving towards real-time payments.