Faster and smoother payment processes may eliminate float forcorporate payables teams, but they also provide enormousopportunities to streamline processes and gain much more precisecontrol over cash balances. That's why most corporate treasurerslove the idea of being able to initiate and finalize transactionsin seconds, rather than waiting days for them to clear.

Back in August, the U.S. Federal Reserve announced plans to takethe first step toward instantaneous payments in the U.S. market.Since then, the Fed has been working to build out a real-timepayments settlement system, which will be called the FedNowservice. In the announcement, Fed governor Lael Brainard explainedthis move by saying: "Everyone deserves the same ability to makeand receive payments immediately and securely, and every bankdeserves the same opportunity to offer that service to itscommunity. FedNow will permit banks of every size, in everycommunity across the country, to provide real-time payments totheir customers."