What a Year of FedNow Service Growth Means for Your 2026 Roadmap

Sponsored Content by Federal Reserve Financial Services

As the new year kicks off, it’s good to pause and reflect on the year that just wrapped up. When it comes to payments, 2025 was marked by continued and rapid innovation. Instant payments in particular continued to gain ground, with consumers and businesses looking to their financial institutions to offer the fast, efficient payment solutions they’ve grown to expect.

In fact, studies of U.S. consumers and businesses from Federal Reserve Financial Services found that:

• Around 6 in 10 consumers state it’s important for their financial institution to offer instant payments, with 78% of Gen Z in particular calling it important, a 14% increase year over year.
• Consumers are adopting instant payments for a wide range of reasons, including 24x7x365 functionality (42%), simplified sending (30%) and immediate notifications (27%). Added benefits, including app-based convenience (26%) and simplicity of use (25%), are also fueling uptake.
• Most businesses (66%) said they were likely to use instant payments if offered by their primary financial institution.
• Businesses using instant payments reported 10% greater satisfaction with their primary financial institution than businesses that do not.

For a recap of 2025 key developments on the Federal Reserve’s instant payment platform, the FedNow® Service, view the infographic below.

Instant Payment Use Cases in Action

Use cases like instant payroll, auto loan disbursements and digital wallet defunding have started gaining traction. And novel use cases crop up each day across a number of industries — real estate transactions, brokerage account defunding, insurance payouts and more.

Looking to the future, merchant refunds, account funding, healthcare payments, and small business and online marketplace payments are use cases likely to emerge strongly in the next 12-18 months. But unexpected uses cases will bubble up too, as they often do, in unpredictable ways.

There’s also momentum building in the industry around request for payment (RFP) – which is a way for a person or business to request an instant payment from another person or business. It’s anticipated that financial institutions will start offering instant bill pay services that can help their customers conveniently send e-invoices, receive instant bill payments and better manage cash flow.