There’s nothing quite like sitting in a baseball stadium, watching the game in the summertime heat with a cool beverage in hand.
Call me strange, but the action on the field never fails to remind me of faster payments – specifically, who can participate in FedNow® Service and RTP®, how instant payments move, and what a winning strategy looks like.
Now bear with me as I bend this metaphor until it nearly breaks.
Who Can Play?
First, I imagine an instant payments transaction as the ball being tossed between the pitcher and catcher, which are (obviously) the sending and receiving financial institutions. In reality, both players must be U.S. financial institutions, provided they meet certain eligibility criteria. This includes banks and credit unions of all sizes, and brokerages if you squint right.
And there’s your basic requirement for participating on the FedNow or RTP instant payment networks: you must use a financial institution to send an instant payment.
How’s the Instant Payment Networks Game Played?
Two people tossing the ball back and forth in a field are just playing catch. For a game, you need to have rules, a stadium, and folks in the stadium seats.
In my expanding baseball analogy, ISO 20022 messaging provides the rules of the game, the payment networks are the stadiums, and all the tools and processes necessary to make the game work are the teams. As for managing risk, the players wear helmets while at bat to keep themselves safe.
And everything must be in place before you can start to play. You have to be able to post transactions to the core and have compliance programs in place. Someone has to design the buttons to mash to allow transactions to be sent. All of these are necessary infrastructure, but still not enough to ensure success.
What’s the Secret to Winning?
In Louisville, where I attend most of the games I watch, it’s the marketing that draws fans to the seats.
The draw is a wide array of family-friendly promotions and theme nights. From Star Wars on May 4 to free hotdogs and after game fireworks, these attractions are akin to the use cases that make the accountholders pull the trigger on payments.
Just like not every promotion speaks to every attendee at the park, you can’t make instant payments work with a single approach.
You’re going to have to find lots of use cases that work for your market and dig into what your accountholders need or value. Some will respond to bobble heads, others to t-shirts and light sabers, and others to … well, you get the drift.
Since its launch, FedNow has seen rapid adoption, with a growing number of financial institutions joining the network. As of Q1 2025, the service processed 1.3 million payments, totally $48 billion. Similarly, the RTP Network has experienced significant growth, with 100 million transactions . These statistics highlight the increasing demand for instant payment solutions and the benefits of participating in these networks.
But we’re going to need to be patient and plan carefully to fill those stadiums.
Get in the Game!
By joining FedNow and RTP, you can provide your accountholders with immediate funds availability, improved cash flow management, and enhanced convenience.
This can lead to increased satisfaction and loyalty, as well as a competitive edge in the market. Additionally, participating in these networks can help streamline your operations (say goodbye to day-two processing and hello to good funds) and reduce the risk of payment fraud and errors.
“Capital P” Participants are financial institutions, absolutely, but the entire industry has to play its part to make those summertime afternoons at the park worthwhile.
I encourage you to think carefully about how you’re going to bring those fans to the stadium. All-you-can-eat nights? Medieval knights? Dirtiest Car on the Lot giveaways? I worked this metaphor to death. And you’re going to have to be just as diligent to uncover the right use cases for your fans, iterating and finding what works time after time, season after season.
.svg)
