The Green Sheet Online Edition
August 11, 2025 • 25:08:01
News Briefs
Real growth in real-time payments <- click to read full story
Real-time payments surged in the second quarter of 2025, with The Clearing House's RTP network processing $481 billion, up 195 percent from the first quarter and averaging 1.18 million daily payments.
A key driver was the February 2025 increase in transaction limits to $10 million, fueling high-value transfers like real estate deals and B2B payments.
The average payment rose from $842 to over $4,000. More than 300,000 businesses now use RTP monthly.
Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve's FedNow service also grew, handling over 2.1 million payments in this year's second quarter and raising its transaction limit to $1 million.
With 1,400 financial institutions now participating, FedNow's average transaction reached $115,331.
Both networks are seeing rising volume and value, driven by account transfers, wallet defunding, gig payouts, and settlements.
Same-day payments lead ACH growth <- click to read full story
The ACH network processed 8.7 billion payments totaling $23.3 trillion in the second quarter of 2025, up 5 percent in volume and 7.9 percent in value year-over-year, Nacha reported.
Same-day ACH played a major role, with 336.4 million payments valued at $980.3 billion, a 15 percent and 22 percent jump, respectively.
Business-to-business transactions surged 20.6 percent, topping 2 billion, while healthcare claim payments rose nearly 10 percent.
Nacha CEO Jane Larimer emphasized ACH's versatility across sectors and predicted continued growth.
Nacha board chair Joe Hussey noted unexpected, strong gains in same-day ACH, citing consumer demand for speed. ACH's consistent expansion signals a strong future even as faster options emerge in the payments ecosystem.
Keeping cash in the mix <- click to read full story
Aiming to protect consumer choice and inclusion, U.S. Senators John Fetterman, D-Pa., and Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., introduced the Payment Choice Act to ensure cash is accepted nationwide.
Supported by the National ATM Council and the Amusement and Music Operators Association, the bill would prohibit businesses from refusing cash or charging more for its use.
Advocates stress that millions of unbanked Americans rely on cash to shop.
Federal Reserve data confirms cash's ongoing role: in 2024, it accounted for 14 percent of all consumer payments, third place behind credit and debit cards.
The Fed's Diary of Consumer Payment Choice also found that cash usage has held steady since 2020, especially among lower-income households and older adults. The legislation aims to protect consumer choice and inclusion.
Eliminating pennies will produce merchant windfall <- click to read full story
The U.S. Treasury plans to halt penny production in July 2026, following a March 2025 executive order.
A Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond report warned this could create a "rounding tax" costing consumers over $6 million annually, as cash transactions round to the nearest 5 or 10 cents.
The impact could soar to nearly $56 million if nickels are also phased out.
While producing a penny costs 3.69 cents, the Fed argued that pennies offer pricing flexibility.
Analysis based on thousands of real consumer transactions found that rounding is not neutral due to skewed totals that favor rounding up. Canada, Australia and New Zealand have already eliminated low-value coins.
PayPal to connect world's main payment systems, digital wallets <- click to read full story
PayPal is launching PayPal World, a global platform designed to unify the world's major payment systems and digital wallets. Going live this fall, it will first enable interoperability between PayPal and Venmo.
Support for Mercado Pago, India's UPI and China's Tenpay Global will follow. PayPal CEO Alex Chriss called it a game changer designed to eliminate friction in the fragmented wallet ecosystem.
The platform uses a cloud-native, low-latency architecture to support global, real-time payments and commerce. Over 5 billion people are expected to be using digital wallets by 2026, yet the system remains fragmented.
PayPal World offers compatibility with stablecoins, dynamic payment buttons and emerging commerce tools, and could expand PayPal's reach from 400 million to 2 billion users. 
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