Welcome to the August Innovating Payments Executive Summary. This month’s top headlines spotlight major federal developments: The President’s Working Group on Digital Asset Markets unveiled new recommendations aimed at reinforcing American leadership in digital finance. In related White House news, President Donald J. Trump officially signed the GENIUS Act into law, and the administration also rolled out its national AI strategy. Finally, federal agencies issued a joint proposal to rescind the 2023 Community Reinvestment Act Final Rule.
In other news, instant payments continue to gain momentum. In Q2, transaction volume and total value surged across all major platforms—Same Day ACH, RTP®, and FedNow®. This upward trend reflects a growing preference for real-time financial solutions, with businesses and consumers alike embracing instant payments.
Finally, NEACH launched a special series on its Wrestling Payments podcast: Fintech Shark Week: Navigating the Waters of Fintech Collaboration. Highlights include Swimming with Giants, Breaking the Silo Surface, Revenue in the Water, and more.
Read on for more on these stories.
Top Headlines
White House Releases Digital Asset Recommendations
On July 30, the President’s Working Group on Digital Asset Markets released recommendations to strengthen American leadership in digital financial technology. The recommendations include:
- Freedom to Innovate: Americans should be able to use digital assets and blockchain technologies legally and without fear, with clear rights for developers and businesses to innovate across sectors.
- Market Leadership: U.S. regulators should create conditions for America’s digital asset markets to be the most liquid and globally competitive.
- Regulatory Shift: Banking regulators embrace the opportunities digital assets and blockchain technologies offer to banks nationwide.
- Digital Dollar Advantage: U.S. dollar-backed stablecoins represent the next wave of innovation in payments, and policymakers should encourage their adoption to advance U.S. dollar dominance in the digital age.
- Balanced Enforcement: Law enforcement must have the tools to combat crypto-related crime—without infringing on the rights of law-abiding users.
- Tax Clarity for Crypto: Federal tax policy must reflect the distinct nature of digital assets and respond to ongoing calls for clearer guidance from innovators and investors.
To read the recommendations in their entirety, click here.
President Donald J. Trump Signs GENIUS Act into Law
On July 18, 2025, President Donald J. Trump signed the GENIUS Act into law, delivering a piece of legislation that aims to make the United States the leader in digital assets.
As noted in a fact sheet issued by the White House:
- The GENIUS Act requires 100% reserve backing with liquid assets, such as U.S. dollars or short-term treasuries, and requires issuers to make monthly, public disclosures of the composition of their reserves.
- Stablecoin issuers must comply with strict marketing rules to protect consumers from deceptive practices. Crucially, they are forbidden from making misleading claims that their stablecoins are backed by the U.S. government, federally insured, or legal tender.
- The GENIUS Act aligns State and Federal stablecoin frameworks, ensuring fair and consistent regulation throughout the country.
To read the fact sheet in its entirety, you can click here.
White House Reveals AI Plan
On July 23, the White House released “Winning the AI Race: America’s AI Action Plan,” in accordance with President Trump’s January executive order on Removing Barriers to American Leadership in AI, as reported in an article posted on whitehouse.gov.
As noted, key policies in the AI Action Plan include:
- Exporting American AI: The Commerce and State Departments will partner with industry to deliver secure, full-stack AI export packages – including hardware, models, software, applications, and standards – to America’s friends and allies around the world.
- Promoting Rapid Buildout of Data Centers: Expediting and modernizing permits for data centers and semiconductor fabs, as well as creating new national initiatives to increase high-demand occupations like electricians and HVAC technicians.
- Enabling Innovation and Adoption: Removing onerous Federal regulations that hinder AI development and deployment and seeking private sector input on rules to remove.
- Upholding Free Speech in Frontier Models: Updating Federal procurement guidelines to ensure that the government only contracts with frontier large language model developers who ensure that their systems are objective and free from top-down ideological bias.
You can learn more at AI.gov.
Federal Agencies Issue Joint Proposal to Rescind 2023 Community Reinvestment Act Final Rule
On July 16, 2025, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Federal Reserve Board, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency issued a joint proposal to rescind the 2023 Community Reinvestment (CRA) final rule issued in October 2023, and replace it with the prior CRA regulations that were initially adopted by the agencies in 1995, with certain technical amendments.
Because the 2023 final rule is subject to legal action and has not taken effect, the agencies continue to apply the 1995 regulations to banks today.
Comments on the proposal are due 30 days after the date of publication in the Federal Register:
You may also be interested in the following related materials:
Nacha
Same Day ACH Q2 Payments: 336.4 Million Transactions, $980.3 Billion in Value
In other news, the ACH Network reported a solid second quarter of 5% growth, with Same Day ACH payments continuing to show significant gains, up 15% from the same period last year, according to a Nacha news release.
Overall, ACH Network growth continued in the second quarter with 8.7 billion payments valued at $23.3 trillion. Those are respective increases of 5% and 7.9% compared to the same period last year.
The volume of Same Day ACH payments in the second quarter of 2025 was 336.4 million, totaling $980.3 billion in value. These figures represent increases of 15% and 22%, respectively. For the first half of 2025, Same Day ACH processed 662.4 million payments valued at nearly $1.9 trillion.
“The continued robust growth of Same Day ACH shows how it is serving payments use cases for consumers, businesses, government agencies and other organizations,” said Jane Larimer, Nacha President and CEO in the release. “As we enter the second half of the year, we expect to see this trend continue.”
To download the infographic, you can click here.
RTP
Q2 Sees $481B Transacted Through RTP® Network, Marking Accelerated Adoption of Instant Payments
In Q2 2025, the RTP® network hit 1.18 million daily transactions totaling $481 billion—up 195% from Q1, according to a July 17 news release issued by The Clearing House. A February increase in the transaction cap to $10 million fueled adoption by businesses and financial institutions, pushing average payment size from $842 in January to over $4,000 by June, a 376% increase.
“Businesses are shifting to move money faster, in larger amounts, and with greater control,” Jim Colassano, Senior Vice President of RTP Business Product Management at The Clearing House, said in the release. “The surge in high-value transactions shows the RTP network—the leading U.S. instant payments system with a strong growth record—is not just meeting demand but enabling new opportunities across the payments ecosystem.”
Transaction volume also grew by 8% in Q2, surpassing 107 million payments, which accounts for 98% of instant bank-to-bank payments in the United States. Growth in instant payments was fueled by broader real-time capabilities—including A2A transfers, fewer wallet top-ups, gig worker payouts, and faster merchant settlements.
For the latest on RTP, check out the Wrestling Payments podcast episode featuring Colassano.
FedNow
FedNow® Surge Reflects Shifting Demand Toward Fast, Reliable Financial Solutions
The Federal Reserve also recently released Q2 2025 data for the FedNow Service, showing notable increases in both transaction volume and value, according to a news release. Quarterly volume jumped 62% to 2.1 million payments, while the average daily transaction value soared over 400% to $2.7 billion.
FedNow's volume and value have experienced strong growth over the past two years since the service's launch, with more than 1,400 financial institutions participating and an increasing number of users shifting from receive-only to send and receive to enjoy the full advantages of instant payments for their customers.
For a full progress update on the service, check out FedNow Service two-year update: A Q&A with Chief FedNow Executive Nick Stanescu.
NEACH
As FIs navigate payments modernization and respond to everything from stablecoins to instant payments, FinTech partners are helping them to make the journey. Check out our series of Wrestling Payments podcast episodes for Fintech Shark Week: Navigating the Waters of Fintech Collaboration:
For more NEACH updates, visit neach.org.
AUTHOR: Joe Casali, AAP, NCP
Executive Vice President
As the EVP of Payments Innovation for NEACH, Joe focuses on exploring innovative solutions and technologies that will help position members for success, both now and in the future. Connect with Joe to read more of his blogs, articles, and posts.