FedNow Send + Receive: SoFi Achieves Real-Time Bilateral Payments as Most U.S. Banks Lag

SoFi, N.A. is now processing both inbound and outbound FedNow® Service transfers around the clock, powered by Galileo's infrastructure, joining a small cohort of U.S. institutions that have moved beyond the network's default receive-only configuration.

The Federal Reserve's instant payment network launched in July 2023 with a structural asymmetry baked in: most participating banks connected for receive only, leaving customers able to accept funds in seconds but still waiting on ACH settlement windows, typically one to three business days, to send money out. As of April 13, 2026, SoFi, N.A. has closed that gap, enabling members to both send and receive funds via FedNow® Service in seconds, 24 hours a day, including weekends and federal holidays.

The capability is built on Galileo Financial Technologies' direct connection to the FedNow® network. Galileo, a wholly owned technology subsidiary of SoFi Technologies (NASDAQ: SOFI), supplies the payment rails, network integration, and transaction controls sitting behind the member-facing experience.

Why does bilateral FedNow access matter and what's the market gap?

When the Federal Reserve opened FedNow enrollment in 2023, adoption was deliberately staged. By mid-2025, roughly 1,000 financial institutions had joined the network, a fraction of the 10,000-plus U.S. depository institutions. Of those participants, the majority enabled only the receive function, meaning their customers could accept instant inbound payments but still relied on same-day or next-day ACH for outbound transfers.

That asymmetry creates a practical ceiling for use cases like cash-flow management, covering a scheduled bill before a balance shortfall, or funding a brokerage account in time for a trade. SoFi's bilateral implementation removes that ceiling for its member base, which the company reported at approximately 10.1 million as of Q4 2025.

How does Galileo's infrastructure underpin the instant payment layer?

Galileo holds a direct participant connection to the FedNow® Service, a non-trivial technical and operational posture that requires maintaining liquidity in a Federal Reserve master account, integrating ISO 20022 message formats, and operating continuous monitoring for fraud and compliance. For SoFi, this means the bank is not reliant on a correspondent arrangement or third-party pass-through; Galileo's infrastructure is the connection.

"For customers, waiting days for money to show up doesn't match how payments work today. By pairing FedNow® Service with Galileo's platform, SoFi gives members instant access to their money whenever they need it."

Bill Kennedy, CFO and Interim Head of Galileo Financial Technologies

SoFi CEO Anthony Noto framed the move in terms of infrastructure debt: legacy core banking systems were not engineered for continuous settlement, and the solution required routing payments through Galileo's centralized payment hub rather than patching aging ACH connectivity. The architecture is designed to absorb new instant-payment participants without each one needing its own direct Fed connection.

What does this signal for Galileo's B2B payments business?

The SoFi deployment is explicitly positioned as a production reference for Galileo's partner pipeline. Because the infrastructure is live and stress-tested, additional fintechs and businesses banking through SoFi, N.A. as a sponsor bank can access FedNow® send/receive capabilities without independently qualifying for Fed network participation, a process that can take months and requires dedicated liquidity management.

That model places Galileo in the same architectural role that Stripe Treasury, Synapse (prior to its 2024 collapse), and Column Bank have occupied: a technology layer enabling embedded instant payments for companies that lack their own banking charter. The distinction is Galileo's direct Fed connection, which removes one counterparty layer versus a correspondent-bank arrangement.

For digital banks, buy-now-pay-later providers, payroll platforms, and consumer apps embedding financial services, the ability to offer 24/7 bilateral transfers, using a sponsor bank already live on FedNow®, meaningfully compresses time-to-market.

Why this matters to FinanceX readers

The slow diffusion of bilateral FedNow participation is one of the clearest structural gaps in U.S. payments infrastructure, and it represents a commercial opportunity for technology intermediaries willing to absorb the operational complexity of direct network participation. SoFi's go-live is incremental confirmation that the real-time payments layer is maturing beyond pilot deployments, with Galileo's partner-bank model offering a credible path for fintechs that cannot or will not seek independent Fed participation. Investors tracking SoFi Technologies should note the dual-purpose logic: the FedNow integration improves member retention economics (faster access to funds reduces friction at the margin) while seeding a B2B revenue line through Galileo's partner channel.

By Koen Vanderhoydonk - FinanceX Magazine