Seamless and customer-focused payments: PNC adds the FedNow® Service to its offerings
02/10/2026
PNC Bank (Off-site) is one of the largest diversified financial services institutions in the United States with roots going back to 1865. PNC provides retail banking, corporate and institutional banking, and asset management to individuals, institutions and businesses of all sizes.
In our latest Real Talk profile, Sarah Billings, executive vice president and head of global payments, discusses PNC’s strategic approach to instant payments, why they added the FedNow Service to their suite of payment options and the impact of instant payments across their customer base.
Q: How has PNC rolled out its instant payment strategy?
A: “Our instant payment strategy was a deliberate approach that took shape over a decade. While the FedNow Service is new to PNC, delivering instant payments is not. We set out to reimagine payments as a whole, rethinking the way our clients use all our payment services.
“At PNC, we embrace what we call a ‘multi-payment strategy.’ Clients don’t always have time to learn a new payment rail, so we took a step back to think about our clients’ needs and how the speed and legal finality of instant payments can have a positive impact. By taking a holistic approach that meets our clients where they are, we were able to inject instant payment options into almost all of our services. This means that clients of all sizes — from large corporates to our small business and retail clients — are using instant payments.”
Q: Why was it important for PNC to add the FedNow Service to its payment offerings?
A: “We ultimately chose to implement the FedNow Service when the U.S. Treasury signaled that it would leverage the service to issue disaster relief payments. As a bank with a large retail franchise, we can’t imagine not giving our clients immediate access to those funds when they need them most. And our instinct was proven right — one of our first three FedNow payments was a disaster relief payment.
“Another key consideration was the ability to expand our instant payments reach to more financial institutions for our clients. We see the FedNow Service expanding, and we’re hopeful that it will help boost us from our current 80% account reach toward a 100% goal.”
Q: What customers have you enabled for instant payments? And what does the instant payment experience look like for your customers?
A: “We have not approached instant payments in a silo, so our instant payment customers span the entire client base of PNC. We’ve embedded the FedNow Service and other instant payments throughout all our solutions, allowing our clients to seamlessly use instant payments as they would leverage traditional payments like wires, ACH or cards.
“When a commercial client needs to issue a payment, they can go online and choose a date for the transaction. Based on their date, the payment will be made on the best-case rail to deliver the payment on time and for the lowest cost. For a client with more complex needs, our intelligent routing capability eliminates the need to ping directories in order to determine which rails are available. This keeps the process seamless for our clients while still prioritizing needs like speed or finality of payment.
“By eliminating potential barriers and building these best-case routing capabilities on our side, we make it easy for clients to adopt new payment options. As a result, we currently have more than 15,000 clients leveraging instant payments.”
Q: What instant payment use cases are your customers leveraging most? Are there any standout anecdotes you’ve heard from those taking advantage of instant payments?
A: “We understood right away that this capability isn’t a one-trick pony. We’ve done a lot of work on earned wage access and emergency payroll capabilities, and we leverage instant payments for our mortgage and loan servicing payments as well. Insurance claim payouts are a big instant use case too, along with merchant settlement. The use cases for instant payments are as diverse as our client base, and we believe it all starts with talking to each customer about their business needs.
“Some unique use cases have come out of those conversations with our clients. For example, we have a client that provides tree trimming around electrical power lines during natural disasters. They work with local contractors in impacted areas, and these are new relationships created on an as-needed basis. It’s critical that they start clearing power lines as quickly as possible. With instant payments, they’re able to get paid and begin work right away, which has a real, positive impact on the community.”
Q: What are some of the broader impacts of instant payments for PNC and for your customers?
A: “Instant payments have really been a game changer for PNC. These capabilities allow us to be very consultative with our clients, centering on their business needs to find payment solutions that fit. Do they have any emergency payments? Do they do exception payments? How are they issuing those payments today? What are their pain points, or what causes friction in their current environment? Even if a client is initially hesitant to consider instant payments as a solution, we start talking to them about their current payments and use cases emerge that can save a lot of time and revolutionize the way they run their business.”
Q: What advice would you give to participants and others who are looking to ramp up their capabilities with the FedNow Service?
A: “I’d say, ‘Come on in. The water is nice!’ I would also underscore that driving the financial system forward with instant payments is critical — PNC is committed to advancing the broader adoption of instant payments nationwide.
“Practically speaking, there are ways to scale up that make adoption easier, like starting with a select group of clients and a few use cases. The key is to scale up thoughtfully and to integrate instant payments so that the system serves all of your customers, rather than a few key players. Ignoring instant payments isn’t an option, so build the system that your customers truly need.”
Want to learn more about the real-world impact of instant payments? Read more FedNow Q&As here.