Real-Time Payments Are at a Tipping Point, Bedeviled by Fears of Risk
The 2025 Faster Payments Barometer reveals an industry at a transformative crossroads, with 80% of financial institutions now considering faster payments essential rather than optional. As implementation plans accelerate — with 90% of deployments expected within two years — a critical disconnect emerges between what banks are building and what businesses actually need.
By Garret Reich, Senior Project Manager at The Financial Brand
The report: 2025 U.S. Faster Payments Barometer
Source: Volante Technologies
Why we picked the report: This report directly addresses a critical aspect of banking operations: fraud and dispute management. How banks handle fraud incidents has more impact on customer trust than the fraud itself. Perhaps most valuable is the guidance on AI implementation —suggesting it should enhance rather than replace solid foundational systems, and recommending a modular approach that allows banks to begin with small investments before scaling up.
Executive Summary
The American banking industry stands at a inflection point in the evolution of faster payments, with more than 90% of financial institutions planning to implement new real-time payment capabilities within the next two years. According to the 2025 Faster Payments Barometer, conducted by the Faster Payments Council and sponsored by Volante Technologies, 80% of respondents now view faster payments as a "must-have" capability rather than an optional service.
The comprehensive survey, which gathered insights from 449 respondents across the payments ecosystem, reveals striking contrasts between how financial institutions and business end users perceive the current state of faster payments adoption. This perception gap helps explain why, despite record levels of satisfaction among banks, businesses remain frustrated with the speed of progress.
Key Takeaways
- Over 90% of planned faster payments implementations are set to be completed within the next two years, suggesting a dramatically different competitive landscape by 2026.
- While financial institutions focus primarily on consumer-facing capabilities like person-to-person transfers, business users prioritize payment integration at point-of-sale (51%) and e-commerce (54%) touchpoints.
- 58% of financial institutions implementing instant payments have chosen to implement both FedNow and RTP, indicating a strong preference for comprehensive coverage over simplified implementation.
- Account takeover fraud emerges as the dominant concern, with the highest proportion of respondents ranking it as their most pressing threat, followed closely by authorized push payment fraud.
Why we liked the report: The report is very clean , and the various data points are presented nicely through the report. Lots of easy graphs and charts for banking executives to nab and use in presentations and such.
Why we didn’t: While the report is very dynamic, it still feels highly technical — on the verge of being dull.
Market Momentum Accelerates
The survey confirms that faster payments have transitioned from innovation to necessity, with strong momentum building across the industry. This sentiment varies by size — with 97% of large financial institutions (assets over $10 billion) viewing faster payments as essential — compared to 90% of mid-sized institutions ($1 to 10 billion) and 75% of smaller financial institutions (under $1 billion).
This hierarchy of enthusiasm likely reflects resource availability and customer expectations, with larger institutions facing greater competitive pressure to offer cutting-edge payment capabilities.
However, this institutional enthusiasm stands in stark contrast to business end user perspectives, where only 67% view faster payments as essential. This 17-percentage-point gap highlights a critical disconnect between what financial institutions are building and what their business customers currently value.
"While financial institutions are racing to implement faster payments capabilities, some business users still seek additional functionality before considering these services essential," notes the report, suggesting that enhanced features could drive stronger business adoption.
Implementation Strategies Reveal Cautious Approach
Despite the strong interest in faster payments, most institutions are taking a measured approach to implementation. Among small- and medium-sized financial institutions, a little over three quarters (78%) plan to begin with receive-only capabilities, while a fifth (22%) intend to launch with both send and receive functionality.
Large financial institutions show greater interest in full-service implementation, with 34% planning to launch with both send and receive functionality — over 50% higher than the full-service adoption rate of smaller institutions. This cautious approach highlights the complexity of implementing 24×7 payment systems in traditional banking environments.
"The pattern suggests institutions are prioritizing risk management and operational stability in their faster payments rollout strategies, while maintaining flexibility to expand services as market demands evolve," the report says.
Fraud of course remains a significant concern, but the survey results do indicate encouraging patterns regarding its impact. Among financial institutions reporting fraud incidents, only 3% report significant impact, with most incidents falling into slight or moderate categories.
Account takeover fraud emerges as the dominant concern, with authorized push payment fraud (including "granny scams" and fraud in the inducement) following as a close second. Synthetic identity and application fraud occupy a middle tier of concern, while transaction fraud and money mule network fraud generate lower levels of immediate concern.
The survey also reveals an important shift in perspectives on fraud prevention responsibility. Business end users now show strong preference for network-level fraud detection and prevention — a significant change from 2023 when most supported distributed responsibility across the value chain. This signals growing recognition of the value of centralized, sophisticated fraud prevention systems.
Business Availability Gap Exposed
The availability of faster payment options for businesses reveals a striking disparity between traditional and newer payment methods. Same day ACH leads in business availability, with 79.3% of institutions offering it to business customers. In contrast, newer payment types struggle to gain similar traction.
FedNow — which officially launched in mid-2023 — reaches less than half of the business customer base at just 31% availability. Similarly, RTP faces limited business access (27.2%), while Zelle for business (18.1%) and push-to-card capabilities (13.8%) show only modest adoption across institutions.
This gap helps explain the lower satisfaction levels among business end users and highlights significant opportunities for market expansion. Many institutions are still in the early stages of expanding faster payment options for businesses, focusing primarily on well-established services like Same Day ACH.
One of the most revealing findings from the Barometer is the disconnect in preferred use cases between financial institutions and business end users. Where businesses focus strongly on customer-facing transaction capabilities—with point of sale and e-commerce solutions emerging as their most pressing needs—financial institutions place their primary emphasis on consumer-focused services.
This strategic focus on consumer services, while valuable, creates a noticeable misalignment with the needs of business customers. The divergence in priorities between what financial institutions are building and what businesses are seeking helps explain the satisfaction gap revealed in the survey data.
Implementation Challenges Vary by Participant Type
Financial institutions identify implementation costs as their primary concern, followed by resource, operational, and staffing issues. These costs remain a major concern due to the significant investment required to modernize payment infrastructure while maintaining legacy systems during transitions.
In contrast, non-financial institutions identify different primary challenges. The lack of ubiquity and interoperability emerges as their leading concern, manifesting as businesses struggle with inconsistent payment capabilities across banking relationships and technology providers face complexity in supporting multiple payment rails and formats.
Directory service limitations also create significant friction in payment initiation and routing. Current directory solutions often operate in silos, requiring businesses to maintain multiple directories or rely on manual processes for payment routing.
Financial institutions demonstrate clear preferences in their value-added service priorities, with security and operational efficiency leading their concerns. Multi-factor authentication emerges as the top priority, with 84% of financial institutions rating it as essential, followed by payment confirmation and notification capabilities (78%) and standardized user interfaces (65%).
Other market participants show notably different priorities. Request for Payment (RFP) capabilities emerge as the top priority among non-financial institutions, with 80% rating this feature as essential. Directory services and payment routing capabilities also rank highly, with 64% rating these features as essential.
These contrasting priorities highlight potential gaps between service provider focus and market demands, suggesting opportunities for institutions to differentiate through targeted value-added services.
Cross-Border Capabilities Show Divergent Views
The Barometer reveals a significant divide in perspectives regarding cross-border payment capabilities. Non-financial institutions show strong enthusiasm, with 76% supporting cross-border functionality, compared to just 41% of financial institutions.
This contrast highlights fundamental differences in how these groups evaluate international payment opportunities and challenges. Non financial institutions — particularly business end users — view cross-border capabilities as essential for expanding market reach and streamlining international operations, while financial institutions take a more measured approach due to the complexity of introducing new payment types alongside existing challenges.
As the faster payments landscape continues to evolve, several key trends will influence market development. Growing emphasis on business payment capabilities should drive expansion of faster payments use cases and value-added services. Security and fraud prevention will remain critical focus areas as payment volumes grow and attack methods evolve.
Cross-border capabilities will gain importance as domestic faster payments implementations mature. Institutions should monitor international payment developments and maintain flexibility to incorporate cross-border capabilities as market demands evolve.
The path forward requires careful balance between implementation speed and operational excellence. While market momentum creates pressure for rapid deployment, institutions must ensure their faster payments capabilities deliver the security, reliability, and functionality their customers require.
For implementations to succeed, organizations must align their strategic vision with practical operations, while deploying technology solutions that balance the demands of rapid evolution with the need for stable, reliable payment systems.
Editor’s note: This article was prepared with AI language software and edited for clarity and accuracy by The Financial Brand editorial team.
