The Federal Reserve System announced via an August 15 press release that Boston Fed First Vice President Kenneth C. Montgomery will lead the development of the new FedNowSM Service to support faster payments in the United States with interbank real-time gross settlement (RTGS) and integrated clearing.
“Ken brings deep financial services insights and technical expertise to his new role,” said Esther George, Kansas City Fed president and chief executive officer and sponsor of the Federal Reserve’s payments improvement initiative. “He is a natural fit to lead FedNow development given his success in previous Federal Reserve chief technology officer roles. In addition, Ken’s collaborative leadership as our payments security strategy leader has made him well-known and respected by the payments industry.”
As previously communicated, the Federal Reserve Board of Governors announced its decision that the Reserve Banks will offer the FedNow Service. The development of the FedNow Service is a multi-year effort that will be informed by public comments on the current Federal Register notice (Off-site). A product description that more fully defines the FedNow offering is expected to be published in a subsequent Federal Register notice next year. Once in place, the FedNow Service will provide critical infrastructure to enable financial institutions of all sizes to offer real-time payments services for their retail and commercial customers.
Pictured above, Montgomery will retain his current position as Federal Reserve Bank of Boston first vice president and chief operating officer, where his responsibilities include financial and treasury services, information technology and strategic planning.
Earlier, as Richmond Fed executive vice president and Federal Reserve System chief technology officer, Montgomery headed the National Information Technology Architecture and Standards Division. This role included Systemwide responsibility for business consulting, technology and strategic planning, standards development, information security policy, risk management and high-intensity solutions engineering.
This is an exciting milestone in U.S. payments modernization, as the Federal Reserve works toward fulfilling the payments industry’s request for infrastructure that will support safe and efficient faster payments for all financial institutions – and by extension, provide the benefits of real-time payments to all Americans. The FedNow team is mobilizing to gather industry input on desired features and functionality so we can solidify FedNow’s product design and further define the pathway to launch.
Federal Reserve Bank of Boston
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Want to learn more about Montgomery and his role in improving the U.S. payments system? Check out our Q&A interview (Off-site) with him on FedPaymentsImprovement.org (Off-site).
