Representatives of these major banks said Capital One and Citigroup would soon join the Federal Reserve Bank’s instant payments system, FedNow, which has been in place for a year.

The two large banks are part of a small group of large banks that have not yet become FedNow participants. This is in contrast to around 900 financial institutions who have since come on board FedNow was launched last JulyTwo other FedNow laggards, Bank of America and PNC, said they were still considering whether to join the system.

Capital One and Citi, the Both are among the largest US banksboth said they expect to connect to the system when asked about their FedNow status. They would join those that have already connected to FedNow, including JPMorgan Chase, the nation’s largest bank, as well as BNY Mellon, Byline Bank and Bridge Community Bank, to name a few.

“Capital One plans to participate in FedNow and will roll it out to customers in the near future,” a bank spokesperson said by email.

Citi takes a similar stance. “We are actively involved in development to join FedNow in the near future,” said a Citi spokesperson.

FedNow allows banks to process payments in seconds, as opposed to the days it typically takes to process payments through other federal systems. When the Federal Reserve launched FedNow last year, it was the biggest advance for the national payments system in around 40 years, allowing the U.S. to potentially catch up other countries already use such systems more widespread.

Fed officials have said they do not want to sign all 10,000 U.S. banks and credit unions, but the central bank is still far from 8,000 financial institutions in the crosshairs.

Bank of America is one of the few major banks that is still undecided about whether to join FedNow. “We strongly support faster payments in the U.S. and continue to monitor the FedNow network and its progress,” a Bank of America spokesperson said by email.

PNC gave a similar response when asked for comment on the lack of connection with FedNow. “PNC supports the continued growth of the payments ecosystem and remains committed to driving the broader adoption of instant payment options in the U.S., including, among others, the FedNow service and The Clearinghouse’s Real Time Payments Network,” a spokesperson for the bank said via email.

Banks across the country already have access to another real-time system launched by The Clearing House in 2017. This system, called the RTP network, has slowly made progress in connecting banks through its large network of international bank owners.

A key reason the Fed launched FedNow was to gain real-time traction with smaller U.S. financial institutions that were wary of joining the RTP network of their larger competitors.

Large banks that have invested in RTP, including Citi, Capital One, PNC and Bank of America, may have had less incentive to join FedNow because they have already invested significantly in RTP. In addition, RTP already reaches most large financial institutions, so they may see less need to connect smaller regional banks and credit unions through FedNow.

In fact, in its statement on the question of joining FedNow, Citi stated that its “The current instant payment option in the US is handled via TCH/RTP.”

FedNow and RTP are not interoperable, but officials from government and private systems have discussed this possibilityThe fact that they are not currently interoperable increases the cost for RTP participants to also connect to FedNow.

For banks already connected to RTP, the additional joining of FedNow is a question of the added value of an additional connection to the financial institutions already connected to FedNow, said a banker at a large financial institution who asked not to be identified. Building a bank’s technology around another system that has different rules and specifications and then training staff on that additional system is costly, he said. This is especially true in terms of risk management to protect a system from malicious actors, he added.

However, the question is not whether banks will ultimately join the new FedNow system, but only when the added value of joining will become convincing enough for them, the banker said. It could also be beneficial to have a backup system, he noted.