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Mastercard Wednesday announced its majority purchase of a Denmark company that features an electronic-billing platform and clearing and instant-payment services. Earlier this week, the Federal Reserve also announced that it will move forward with its development of a real-time gross settlement service.

While NAFCU has pressed the central bank to play an operational role in efforts to modernize the nation's payment system, the association also supports private sector solutions and interoperability between the Federal Reserve's system and private operators.

In its announcement, Mastercard said the acquisition of Nets "advances [its] strategy to capitalize on the vast and fast-growing global Real-Time Payments opportunity" and further strengthens the company's existing capabilities within the technology.

NAFCU is keeping credit unions up to date on the faster payments front, ensuring the industry's perspective on any advancements is taken into account by stakeholders.

In recent months, NAFCU has held member meetings with St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank President James Bullard, Boston Federal Reserve Bank President Eric Rosengren and Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank President Neel Kashkari. In addition, the association and its Board of Directors meet annually with the Federal Reserve to present findings from NAFCU's Annual Report on Credit Unions and to discuss issues critical to the industry. It will continue to represent the credit union industry's best interests in this process.

Mastercard is a NAFCU Services Preferred Partner and was the sponsor of the association's 2019 Annual Conference.