As of January 2026
A payroll rollout taught me the hard part of payments is not the API. It is access. We had a clean integration, a sponsor-bank path, and a settlement window that looked fine on paper.
The real friction showed up in funding caps, routing permissions, and what could clear directly versus what had to detour through a sponsor. That is exactly the seam the Fed’s new payment-account RFI sits on.
RFI opened
Dec 19 2025
Fed seeks input on a limited-purpose payment account to clear and settle, without a full master account.
Comment deadline
Feb 6 2026
on the Reserve Bank Payment Account Prototype (Federal Register).
Constraints
Capped
no interest, no Fed credit, balance caps, and no change to who is legally eligible.
What the RFI proposes
On December 19, 2025, the Federal Reserve asked for input on a limited-purpose payment account that would let an eligible institution clear and settle its own payments without holding a full master account. The constraints are the point: it would pay no interest, provide no Fed credit, sit under balance caps, and would not expand who is legally eligible for Fed payment services. Comments are due February 6, 2026.
Where it changes real systems
HCM and PEO payroll flows could isolate payroll settlement from other balances, but only through an eligible institution. Gig payout platforms could cut sponsor-bank friction if the eligible entity uses a payment account, though the caps force active liquidity management. Bill-pay and treasury processors could gain a cleaner settlement path and still need a fallback route for when the account hits its limit.
Payment access is turning into a design decision, not just a policy decision. The platforms that model access as a tier in the entitlement layer will absorb a change like this without re-plumbing settlement.
