Following an antitrust review that lasted almost a year, the approval would appear to cement The Clearing House's status as the front-runner in a race to modernize the U.S. payments system.
The central bank said Wednesday that it will assess a range of options regarding its operational role in a modernized payment system, an issue that divides large and small banks.
For the last two years, the central bank has allowed the private sector to drive a process aimed at modernizing the nation's payments system. Now the Fed will have to determine what its own role will be.
An influential task force established by the central bank envisions a future in which the U.S. has multiple real-time payment systems, and in a new report it lays out a series of actions that will be necessary to stitch them together.
