News Summary

• Let’s drill down here.Last week, the U.S. government’s instant payment system, FedNow Service, finally went live.FedNow is an instant payment infrastructure for transferring money that promises to be a faster payment rail for financial institutions, offering immediate access to funds no matter the day or time.
• By making it easier to pay, the company touts that medical company customers were, on average, able to increase patient collections for medical group partners by 75%, reducing the “days sales outstanding” to 12 days from between 60 and 90 days.
• As such, according to Shapiro, “business customers that are deciding which to use may be deterred if banks make FedNow significantly more expensive than ACH.”He added: “A business may be prepared to pay 3.5 cents to get someone money faster, but draw the line at paying 25 cents.
• Here’s how it works: Utilizing a biometric payment system, the customers hover their palm above a reader device that identifies the individual’s unique palm signature and associates it with the customer’s payment card on file in order to charge them for their purchases.
• Who wouldn’t want a one-click way to access and pay all the bills associated with a procedure?CB Insights released its Q2 State of Fintech Report last week, and unsurprisingly, global funding in the space was down — plunging by nearly half to $7.8 billion, its lowest level since 2017.
• A recent report found that about a fifth of BNPL (buy now, pay later) customers said they used Apple Pay Later in its first three months.