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July 2025 • Issue 25:07:02

Good news in payments you might have missed

quarter compared to the same quarter in 2024. And both
RTP and FedNow, the two operational instant payment
networks, are posting rapid growth rates.

"Businesses are shifting to move money faster, in larger
amounts, and with greater control," said Jim Colassano,
senior vice president of RTP business product management
at TCH, which operates RTP. RTP posted 195 percent
growth in the value of transactions crossing the network.
Key drivers included account-to-account transfers, digital
wallet defunding, gig economy payouts and merchant
settlements, TCH reported.

FedNow, a relative newcomer to the instant payments scene,
charted equally robust growth in 2025's second quarter,
moving more than 2.1 million payments, with an average
value of $115,331 compared to $3,154 in the second quarter
of 2024. Chief FedNow Executive Nick Stanescu, pointed
By Patti Murphy to an "explosion of instant payment innovation emerging
among financial institutions, payment processors and
e are hammered, seemingly daily, with news fintechs."
about how bad things are going—for the
economy, financial institutions (FIs) and FedNow owes much of its growth to community and
W merchant services providers. But there's no regional FIs getting on the faster payments bandwagon.
need to let doom win the day. Read on for some good news The Fed said it now has 1,400 FIs moving payments across
highlights from the payments and fintech sphere. the network, including FIs like Patelco Credit Union, which
has begun working with payment services firm Payfinia to
One eye-opening piece of good news is that small business accept payments into wealth management accounts.
sales are growing. Yes, growing. The Fiserv small business
index revealed that year-over-year sales grew 4.4 percent
in June. Compared to June 2024, sales of services (up 5.2
percent) outperformed sales of goods (up 2.3 percent).
Service-based businesses saw strong growth year-over- Contributed articles inside by:
year, including professional services, Fiserv reported.
Allen Kopelman .....................................................................................16
Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found
that median inflation expectations fell 0.2 percent to 3.0 Dustin Magaziner .................................................................................18
percent on the one-year ahead horizon. Additionally, year- Chris Bucolo ............................................................................................20
ahead expectations about households' financial situations
improved, with a larger share of households expecting a Elie Y. Katz ...............................................................................................28
better financial situation a year from now. Better than one
in four (27.8 percent) expect to be much better off, the New Michael Meeks .......................................................................................30
York Fed reported. Viktoria Soltesz .....................................................................................34
Payments moving faster Zaki Farooq .............................................................................................36
Another bright spot is that payments are moving faster.
Same-day ACH payments were up 15 percent in the second
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