A new bill in Congress — the PACE Act — would let qualified non‑bank payment firms plug directly into the Federal Reserve’s payment rails, a move supporters say could speed up transfers, cut fees and modernize the U.S. payments stack.
Under the proposal, regulated payment providers would be able to connect straight to systems such as Fedwire, FedACH and FedNow without taking a full bank charter. The draft creates a new federal designation, “Registered Covered Provider,” supervised by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). That status would give eligible firms a statutory right to apply for Fed payment accounts.
Qualification is aimed at firms already operating at scale: typically those holding more than 40 state money‑transmitter licenses or a state depository charter. The bill would effectively “passport” approved providers across all 50 states, replacing the current costly, fragmented patchwork of state licensing with unified federal oversight and reserve requirements.
Those reserve rules mirror elements of the recently advanced GENIUS Act: customer funds would need to be backed 1:1 by cash, Federal Reserve deposits, U.S. Treasuries or tokenized equivalents. Proponents say that preserves safety by keeping non‑bank customer balances in central‑bank‑grade assets while granting access to central bank money.
Fintech and crypto groups have reacted positively, viewing the PACE Act as a way to make U.S. payments faster, cheaper and more competitive against private alternatives and foreign real‑time systems. As one supporter told Politico, “we can reduce the burden of bank fees borne by too many American families by enabling broader access to innovative payment systems that deliver cheaper, faster, more reliable service.” The bill is presented as a consumer‑focused reform, not a subsidy to fintechs.
If enacted, PACE would join the GENIUS stablecoin framework and recent SEC actions on digital‑asset accounting as part of a broader reshaping of U.S. market plumbing—potentially enabling large crypto and payments firms to move dollars over Fed rails instead of relying on correspondent banking networks. The change could be a significant structural shift for how dollars are transferred in the U.S. economy.
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