Fed's Waller: streamlined payment accounts to be operational by 4Q 2026

By Ann Saphir

(Reuters) -The U.S. Federal Reserve aims to get a new set of streamlined payment accounts that would allow risk-tailored access to Fed payment services operational by the fourth quarter of next year, Fed Governor Christopher Waller said on Wednesday.?

"We're moving at startup speed on this: we're not screwing around like federal regulators," Waller said as he announced the accelerated timeline for the creation of the new accounts. "I try to live the mantra...we are a new Fed: we are moving, we are doing things, we have to act."

Waller, who chairs the Fed's internal payments committee, first detailed last month how these "skinny" accounts might work, granting firms access to the Fed's payments infrastructure without accompanying services and backstops.

On Wednesday he told a Philadelphia Fed fintech conference that the Fed would "very quickly" be putting out a "request for information" to collect industry and public comments on the plan before issuing a formal rules proposal and finalizing what he envisions to be a tiered approach to payment account access.

Meanwhile, he said, the Fed has already begun working on developing the technology to handle the accounts.?

Eligibility for "master accounts" - a terminology Waller said the Fed will retire in favor of the more generic "payment accounts" - will not change under the new system, he said on Wednesday.

"The goal here, assuming nothing goes haywire, is to have these up and operationalized by the fourth quarter of 2026," Waller said.?

(Reporting by Ann Saphir, Editing by Franklin Paul and Andrea Ricci )