I should also note that there is powerful Fed-chartered initiative, called the Faster Payments Task Force, going on right now. It combines +300 of the nation's payment stakeholders (including big banks, networks, retailers, etc). We've made a ton of meaningful progress on speed, standards, and more.

Big news coming in the next few weeks...

(learn more at https://fedpaymentsimprovement.org/)

Thanks for the effort, and for posting this.

I had no idea about this. Thanks for posting this and make sure to post an update on your "big news".

This is interesting, would like to see how it might help Kiva some day more efficiently transfer money in the U.S.

Thanks for your contributions to the FPTF, Jordan!

Same Day ACH has been in the works for a while; however, a payments expert I spoke with said all the big banks are opposing it since (a) they make more on wires, as mentioned, and (b) most of them have in-house same day transfers, so it's an argument for opening multiple accounts with them vs at different institutions.

https://www.nacha.org/content/same-day-ach

The electronic financial system in the US is an embarrassment, to be honest. Instant transfers have existed in other countries for years. The only platforms that allow instant payments require (a) holding money in their bank account (e.g. your Venmo balance) and (b) the companies to comply with incredibly stringent money transmitter laws.

From what I've heard, Stripe doesn't make much from CC transactions (hence why almost all providers are at the same pricing). ACH costs fractions of a penny, so even if they only make $5 it's nearly 100% profit.

[Note: I'm not a payments expert so would love if someone who is could (in)validate all the above.]

Large banks aren't opposing faster payments anymore. It's my understanding that the NACHA membership voted to approve Same Day ACH and it will be phased in over the course of 2016-2018. In addition, the largest FIs are creating an actual real-time ACH system through The Clearing House, which has licensed technology from VocaLink (the developer/operator of the UK's Faster Payments system) and FIS to do so.

there's also the problem that it's a bit vague as to who can actually enforce faster payments. The effort is currently led by the FED, but they technically don't have enforcement power, the CFPB could do something but that'd be a bit of a stretch.

Additionally, the large banks are trying to influence the rules and requirements; for example, clearXchange + early warning system merging under a (large) bank consortium

All of the above is correct.

I believe they also like the float on the slower methods.