Every year, new payment technologies compete for financial institutions' attention. RTP® network. FedNow® Service. Request for Payment. Stablecoins. Tokenized deposits. The list keeps growing. During a recent discussion, Payments Strategy in a Multi‑Rail World: Prioritizing Your 2026 Investments, one message rose above the technology itself: successful payment strategies don't begin with the rails—they begin with the member.
It's an easy mistake to make. When new payment capabilities emerge, institutions often focus first on implementation, certification, or which network to support. But members don't choose their financial institution because it offers a particular payment rail. They choose it because it helps them solve everyday financial challenges quickly, securely, and conveniently.
Rather than asking, "Should we implement RTP or FedNow first?" credit unions should begin by asking, "What problems are our members trying to solve?" For consumers, that may mean getting paid immediately after a shift, moving money between accounts on a weekend, funding an investment account before markets open, or sending money to family members instantly. For businesses, it could mean faster supplier payments, payroll, or improved cash flow management.
Once customer needs are identified, selecting the appropriate payment rail becomes much simpler. As Mark Majeske, Senior Vice President of Faster Payments at Alacriti, explained during the discussion: "RTP and FedNow are not products. They're actually capabilities or networks. What financial institutions bring to the table is solving those problems for customers and making their lives easier."
The numbers reinforce why this approach matters. According to Datos Insights, 87% of U.S. midsize to large businesses prioritize instant payments, making faster payments an increasingly common expectation rather than a competitive differentiator on the commercial side as well. Meanwhile, the RTP network processed more than 343 million payments totaling over $246 billion in 2025, while the Federal Reserve's FedNow Service continues to expand participation across financial institutions (currently with 1,800 financial institutions live). The question is no longer whether members will expect instant payments—it's how they'll choose to use them.
Instead of building a roadmap around individual payment rails, build it around the member experiences you want to deliver. The technology should support the strategy—not define it. For example, if members need immediate payroll access or account-to-account transfers, instant payment rails become the obvious choice. If commercial members regularly make cross-border payments, emerging technologies like stablecoins or tokenized deposits may eventually become part of the conversation. Starting with the use case makes future technology decisions much easier because each new capability simply becomes another tool—not another standalone project.
This approach also helps avoid a common trap: treating every new payment innovation as a separate implementation. Request for Payment, digital assets, and future payment networks don't require individual strategies—they require a flexible payments foundation that can support whatever comes next.
Fraud prevention must evolve alongside these new capabilities as well. Faster payments require real-time fraud detection and layered risk controls. As Majeske noted during the discussion, instant payments don't allow time for traditional queue-based fraud reviews. Instead, institutions need risk tools capable of evaluating transaction behavior, recipient history, and device intelligence in seconds.
Ultimately, payments modernization isn't a technology project—it's about delivering the experiences members increasingly expect while giving your institution the flexibility to adapt as payments continue to evolve. Credit unions that build around member needs today will be far better positioned to support tomorrow's payment innovations, whatever form they take.
To hear more insights from this discussion, watch the on-demand chat, Payments Strategy in a Multi‑Rail World: Prioritizing Your 2026 Investments, featuring Mark Majeske, Senior Vice President of Faster Payments at Alacriti.
