Instant payments are gaining significant momentum across today’s modern payments ecosystem, transforming how financial institutions, fintechs, businesses and consumers move money in real time. To help propel this growth, Federal Reserve Financial Services (FRFS) is introducing a new FedNow discount program to help accelerate the next wave of adoption and enablement for new and existing FedNow participants starting Jan. 1, 2027.
Helping institutions unlock early value
After three years of steady adoption and network growth, the industry has signaled that more support for send enablement could further accelerate their instant payment journey. The FedNow discount program directly responds by offering targeted financial discounts, delivered through statement credits, to support institutions in activating and scaling instant payments.
“The FedNow statement credits give financial institutions a simple, fast way to tap into the full value of instant payments. By offsetting upfront costs, we’re helping organizations turn on send and receive capabilities sooner and start realizing benefits right away,” said Nick Stanescu, chief FedNow executive. “This program is designed to help institutions grow instant payment volume and continue supporting the industry toward a more modern, resilient payments future.”
What the discount program offers
This technical guide gives a full description of the tiered components of the FedNow discount program. At a high level, the program includes:
- Receiver discount: For institutions that enable FedNow receive capabilities and adopt key FRFS value added services.
- Sender discount: For institutions that enable FedNow send capabilities and meet baseline activity thresholds.
These discounts are designed to offset meaningful portions of implementation costs while encouraging sustained usage. Financial institutions are encouraged to contact their relationship manager for more information and personalized guidance.
In conjunction with the rollout of the discount program, the origination discount for the first 2,500 items per month will be discontinued. More details related to broader FRFS pricing initiatives will be announced later this year.
Strengthening the broader payments ecosystem
Alongside the new discount offering, FRFS offers a full suite of value-added services and risk mitigation tools — such as the Exception Resolution Service, FedPayments® Insights Service for FedACH® Services, FedNow Service network intelligence API and FedDetect® Anomaly Notification Premier. These offerings complement this program, helping institutions operate instant payments confidently and effectively.
Together, these efforts strengthen the broader payments ecosystem by accelerating instant payment adoption, expanding the use of FRFS reconciliation and risk management tools, and reinforcing FRFS’s commitment to supporting payment modernization and driving more efficient instant transactions across the industry.
