FedNow’s growth highlights disbursements and inclusion but consumer access lags

The Federal Reserve’s instant-payments service FedNow has begun to show measurable value for financial inclusion, but panelists at the board’s financial inclusion conference said consumer-facing adoption and protections must catch up.

Eric Van Bremmer, senior vice president for customer and industry relations at Federal Reserve Financial Services, said FedNow — launched three years ago — is a 24/7 credit-push, real-time gross settlement tool that “settles in seconds” and is already being used to move disbursements such as insurance and FEMA payments directly to individuals. "Those are really the use cases that are starting to resonate," Van Bremmer said, saying the network supports faster help to people in crisis.

Why it matters: Faster disbursements can reduce the time people wait for critical funds and cut reliance on costly intermediaries such as check-cashing stores. The panel tied faster settlement to economic mobility and resilience, which the Atlanta Fed’s Jessica Washington linked to broader policy goals.

Panelists flagged two gaps. First, Van Bremmer said about 1,800 financial institutions are live on the FedNow network, but only roughly 10% of network participants are currently using the service to send payments on behalf of consumers — a gap between back‑end connectivity and customer-facing availability. "We're not building an app," Van Bremmer said. "We're building the connection between financial institutions and asking them to innovate on the side of that and create that user experience."

Second, immediacy brings risk. Panelists cautioned that irrevocable, real-time settlement removes the historical "float" consumers sometimes used to manage cash flow and can amplify scams and fraud if safeguards and consumer education lag. The panel described several risk mitigations FedNow has built into the platform, including velocity controls, AI-driven anomaly detection and payee-name verification.

Scott Talbot of the Electronic Transactions Association said fraud and scams remain a major concern and that stopping fraudulent or scam payments often requires a multi-layered approach of design, front-line training and consumer alerts. "It's a shared responsibility," Talbot said, urging industry education so consumers understand irreversible payments and second-look prompts.

The session included concrete examples of impact: Van Bremmer described a FEMA payment sent to an individual in a disaster zone as an early demonstration of the network’s value, and panelists gave examples of small rural employers and credit unions using earned-wage access to get workers paid more quickly.

What happens next: Panelists urged more financial institutions to embed instant-send functionality into customer apps and called for consumer-focused education paired with technical controls so faster payments reach underserved consumers without increasing harm.