The EU has already figured this out with the recently passed instant payments regulation [0]. As of 2024 are 5,304 banks in the EU [1], so the number of banks really isn’t an excuse. The US banking system lags the rest of world by a mile, because there is no will to force modernization.

[0] https://www.ecb.europa.eu/paym/integration/retail/instant_pa...

[1] https://www.ebf.eu/factsandfigures/

The regulation passed in 2024 which is the same year as FedNow. Am I missing something?

FedNow is a technological solution for instant payments, not a regulation. It’s a voluntary system for the banks to join. Further, banks are not required to offer instant payment services to their customers. The analogous technological solution in the EU is TIPS [0], which has been operational since 2018.

The IPR is a regulation that requires banks to support instant payments and offer them to customers.

[0]: https://www.ecb.europa.eu/paym/target/tips/html/index.en.htm...

Bizum is for P2P instant payments and it’s operated by a consortium of Spanish banks, not Banco de España.

Bizum can be used for B2C payments, and there're gateways for online purchases.