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FedNow Is Live

federalreserve.gov

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Re: FedNow Is Live

#621

Post by slipperlobster »

hathawsh wrote: post #542
Ao7bei3s wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does a development environment look like, both architecturally and simply visually? Like: Do developers spin up entire fake economies with two banks and the fed on their latop, or is it all incremental changes to individual microservices in a big permanent test setup? Do other banks / service providers / the fed run test instances of their systems with fake money for other companies to do interop with, like a "g…

Once the service provider is connected to the Fed (a somewhat complex process), it's normal software development. The client uses either MQI or JMS to send and receive messages; the messages are essentially ISO20022 XML. The development environment could be anything (any OS, any IDE). You interface those messages with your system of accounts. The Fed also provides a simple web UI and a testing network where you can t…

That's really interesting. I worked in PCI (payment cards industry) and we had terminals we could relay the ISO8583 messages through, eventually opting to emulate via software for obvious reasons.

Always so cool to hear about this sort of stuff.

Re: FedNow Is Live

#622

Post by sjdmdlakziggy »

pas wrote: post #596
sjdmdlakziggy wrote: post #559

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I spent a couple years deploying and integrating IBM MQ, and I own a couple of services currently that interact with it. It was (just a couple years ago) and probably still is more robust than current open source solutions, as long as you weren't planning on forking the code for some very specific use case that requires heavy modification, or the more likely situation of just wanting to save money. As far as message…

can you please compare this IBM mainframe plus MQ stack with distributed and sufficiently redundant Kafka, for example?

I can try, but the difficulty there is that Kafka is not really a traditional message queue system and the use cases are different. In short though, redundancy isn't sufficient to solve the reliability issues inherent in financial applications and transaction processing.

If you want througput, Kafka is the better option. Use a message queue for transaction processing against a specific target, where it is a requirement for you to have guaranteed, one-time and one-time only delivery, and possibly that its secret and should only be delivered to one target. You should conceptualize Kafka as being a tool to maintain a sort of distributed, global state. A message queue is more like getting served to go to court.

Technically, Kafka is an event stream, not a message queue (this can be confusing because event streams are often implemented at a surface level like message queues). The difference between an event and a message on a conceptual level is important though. There's plenty of good literature out there if you want to dig deep into the difference.

Re: FedNow Is Live

#623

Post by rodgerd »

seanalltogether wrote: post #415
2143 wrote: post #179

Funny thing about topics like this is that people of any given country is oblivious to how other countries have solved that problem, or the challenges other countries face, or inturn the problems that they themselves face. Regarding payment systems specifically, people generally don't realize what they're missing. Pick anybody from anywhere and they'll tell you they've been able to do everything they ever wanted to d…

> Pick anybody from anywhere and they'll tell you they've been able to do everything they ever wanted to do (with regards to payments) using the already-existing systems of their country. This is like comparing candles and lightbulbs. Sure you can light up your home using both methods just fine, but you end up realizing how inconvenient candles were once you've made the jump to the newer technology.

Yes, but in many cases the people using candles fight like hell to insist that electric bulbs aren't better, can't be better, and even if they were better, there's no way to have electricity in the US.

Re: FedNow Is Live

#624

Post by pas »

landemva wrote: post #497
yieldcrv wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

public / private is a false dilemma trusts, foundations, and a host of other entities are ‘orphaned’ entities and is essentially a third category which is more accurate for the Federal Reserve as well The Board of Governors is a public entity with an appointment, and the rest of the entity has a rotation of members and pretty full autonomy on how it runs on the inside at the employee level

It's a club funded by interest rate skimming with opaque structure and reporting requirements which don't conform to typical reporting requirements. CEO of Silicon Valley Bank was on BoD of SFO branch, which failed to adequately regulate SVB. https://www.svb.com/news/company-news/svb-financial-group-ce... "SVB Financial Group CEO Elected to the Board of Directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco"

why do you think it was a regulatory failure? it's not the Fed's job to make sure every bank has a sane business plan and rock solid conservative riskless strategy.

its job is to make sure the entire system can take the stress of failing banks.

the FDIC did its job too.

Re: FedNow Is Live

#625

Post by rodgerd »

ksec wrote: post #483
2143 wrote: post #179

Funny thing about topics like this is that people of any given country is oblivious to how other countries have solved that problem, or the challenges other countries face, or inturn the problems that they themselves face. Regarding payment systems specifically, people generally don't realize what they're missing. Pick anybody from anywhere and they'll tell you they've been able to do everything they ever wanted to d…

Which is basically why all the De-Fi, Web 3.0, Cyrpto nonsense are very much US centric.

When I want to know what the future of money transfers could look like, I'd ask people from, say the Swahili-speaking regions of Africa, not Silicon Valley.

Re: FedNow Is Live

#626

Post by galkk »

The announcement is very unclear. What I as layperson will get from it?

Is it an app FedPayPal/Fedmo that I will be able to use for sending funds? Is it something that will be used by other apps to have cheaper funds transfer? Because if it is latter then I'm afraid that entrenched players will just keep doing what they're doing, keeping the profits but offloading processing to that system if it will be cheaper.

The fees by Paypal/Square/Stripe even Visa and Mastercard are enormous. Personally, I strongly believe that if one will dig deep enough he will find cartel there that sets prices. And when that will happen, LIBOR scandal is going to be a kindergarten play.

Re: FedNow Is Live

#627

Post by ghaff »

aidenn0 wrote: post #445
mnahkies wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't you just describing cash? Cheque has the same issue as the online alternatives in that it could "bounce" - cash (or I guess crypto) can't

Large checks are cheaper to handle than an equivalent amount of cash. Most people won't just toss $10k in the back of their car and drive to the bank, but would think nothing of taking a $10k check to the bank. Also, there is less of a need for a receipt when paying by check. If I pay someone by check, my bank has a record of it. If I pay them by cash, I better get (and keep) that receipt in the case of a later non-p…

I gather check verifications have gotten better. I had to buy a new car last year and my deposit was via CC but, for the final payment, they were fine with a personal check whereas I've always had to pay with a cashier's check from the bank in the past.

Re: FedNow Is Live

#628

Post by patmorgan23 »

hitpointdrew wrote: post #224
tjpnz wrote: post #149

I don't understand why FedNow and CBDC are such a big issue in the US. FedNow looks quite attractive from a fees perspective, especially when compared to PayPal and alike. Part of me wonders if the middlemen who stand to lose out might be trying to muddy the waters. It wouldn't be the first time.

> I don't understand why ~FedNow and CBDC~ BIG BROTHER are such a big issue in the US. Fixed this for you. I don't really want a gigantic federal agency having insight into every financial transaction I make. Hard, fucking, pass.

You know they already do right? If you pay or get paid by direct deposit or check those all run through the fed.

Re: FedNow Is Live

#629

Post by mixmastamyk »

galkk wrote: post #626

The announcement is very unclear. What I as layperson will get from it? Is it an app FedPayPal/Fedmo that I will be able to use for sending funds? Is it something that will be used by other apps to have cheaper funds transfer? Because if it is latter then I'm afraid that entrenched players will just keep doing what they're doing, keeping the profits but offloading processing to that system if it will be cheaper. The…

You go your bank and set up a bank transfer, check the box to save details to your contacts if desired, and then hit the submit button.

Re: FedNow Is Live

#630

Post by gavinsyancey »

rkagerer wrote: post #484
ke88y wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the very least, one would hope that credentials and perhaps also certain design documents such as threat models aren't public. There may also be implementation details or code which are subject to NDA, either from the Fed itself or from service providers such as IBM in this case. Sometimes you can get that info from a FOIA request, but that doesn't negate the fact that the employees working on the system are bound…

certain design documents such as threat models aren't public That smells like security through obscurity (which admittedly is the status quo in the banking world). Contrasted to approaches like Bitcoin, for which full code and whitepaper are public, and which has managed to survive every attack vector thrown at it for the last decade and a half. Not arguing for Bitcoin as money here, just highlighting the diverse app…

Fraud detection heuristics, at least, fundamentally have to rely on security through obscurity. If fraudsters know exactly what is detected as fraud, they can avoid detection.

Bitcoin gets around this by having absolutely no fraud prevention, and just saying "lol sucks for you should've been more careful"...

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