The Federal Reserve recently hosted a webinar, Delivering Instant Satisfaction with Bill Payments via FedNow, on Monday, Sept. 28. Over 150 participants from across the payment ecosystem joined the webinar to hear about bill pay capabilities of the FedNow Service, including features such as request for payment (RFP).

The webinar covered the evolution of consumer-to-business bill payments and the impact the FedNow Service could have on enhancing bill payment for both billers and consumers.

Attendees heard from Kelli Cumiskey, FedNow Product Manager, on the capabilities available within the FedNow Service to enhance the bill pay experience with RFP. “While the RFP functionality is not limited to bill payment, the feature presents a big opportunity in the bill pay space, particularly for small businesses or infrequent billers,” she said.

Cumisky also described how the FedNow Service facilitates RFP with a specific ISO message that can then link to a credit push transfer back if the consumer chooses to “accept” the RFP. This creates a seamless way to initiate a bill payment containing the necessary remittance information for the biller to use for reconciliation processes, she noted.

Stephanie Miracle, FedNow Product Management Lead, went on to discuss the importance of two critical factors with bill pay: timeliness and the certainty of the received payment. “This transparency represents an opportunity for financial institutions and their customers on both sides of the bill payment transaction – billers and consumers,” she said. Miracle also explained how instant payments, using RFP, support straight-through processing for billers, which can save time and money. And for consumers, they can have control and confidence the payment is settled immediately.

A recording of the Sept. 28 webinar is available below:

Delivering Instant Satisfaction with Bill Payments via FedNow Presentation Slides (PDF)

If you have any questions, please reach out to us at SYSFedNowWorkGroup@chi.frb.org.

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