Financial firms in the US are highly interested in faster payment networks, with 78 per cent saying it is a ‘must-have’ for their organisation; according to Volante Technologies, the payments-as-a-service (PaaS) firm.

With the FedNow Service launch in July 2023, most institutions have established firm FedNow plans, with a 50 per cent year-over-year uptick in respondents who said they plan to connect within the year or sooner. More than a quarter of those planning to connect to the Clearing House RTP (TCH RTP) Network expect to do so within the following year.

Erika Bauman, director of commercial banking and payments practice at Datos Insights, discussed the growing importance of real-time payments: “The interest in real-time payments and the impressive adoption rate of real-time payment usage across the networks underline a transformative shift in the payments ecosystem.

“Once seen as a nice-to-have, 24/7 real-time payment experiences are increasingly a core requirement for consumers and businesses.”

Volante customers appear to share this sentiment, with several banks already using the Volante PaaS platform for TCH RTP or FedNow Instant Payments Service or are about to certify on these networks.

PaaS and cloud growth

PaaS is also on track to displace bank data centres as the preferred method for payment processing. Half of all mid-tier institutions are either already using or implementing it, a significant increase from only 11 per cent in 2021 – driven by the fact that ubiquity and cost remain top challenges. In fact, 92 per cent see payment system interoperability as a top issue, consistent over the four annual surveys.

Deepak Gupta, EVP of product, engineering, and services at Volante Technologies, also added: “With a renewed focus on deposit protection and customer retention, financial businesses now realise that providing superior payments services, specifically instant and real-time payments, provides an ideal way to meet their customers’ shifting needs.

“Furthermore, the industry is converging on PaaS as the fastest, lowest-risk way to achieve payment modernisation. As a result, it is an efficient and effective way for our customers to extract meaningful value from technology.”

The annual mid-tier bank payments modernisation survey report is based on data collected throughout 2023. It offers invaluable insights into the evolving payments landscape among US mid-tier banks and credit unions with assets between $1billion to $50billion. The data encompasses responses from diverse payment professionals, from business and technology executives to front-line systems operators.

Cosmos-based networks Umee and Osmosis will merge via a software upgrade, according to a Dec. 4 announcement. Umee’s UX Chain code will be reimplemented on the Osmosis chain, allowing features of the two networks to be combined and creating what the development teams call a “DeFi Hub” for the Cosmos ecosystem.

Umee is a decentralized lending protocol that runs on its own dedicated Cosmos chain called “UX Chain.” Osmosis, on the other hand, is one of the largest decentralized exchanges (DEXs) in the Cosmos ecosystem, which also runs on its own dedicated network. It has over $23 billion in cumulative volume and is the fourth largest Cosmos chain in terms of total value locked (TVL), according to DeFiLlama.

According to the announcement, the development teams behind the protocols agreed to combine the two networks, allowing the lending app and DEX to exist on the same chain. The teams claim this will enable advanced features on the exchange that were previously not possible, including spot margin trading, shorting, liquidations, stablecoin pools, interchain flash loans, MEV markets, and others.

“The combined architecture of both chain functionality will open up the door for flash loans and new forms of MEV on the same DeFi Hub,” said Osmosis co-founder Sunny Agarwal, adding “we originally thought of flashmint via protorev for multiple types of cross chain arb, and realize[d] a lending protocol on the same chain would further optimize this vision.”

Related: Cosmos Hub greenlights ATOM inflation cut for security boost

The announcement did not state a specific date for the merger. Instead, it urged users to “be on the lookout for more updates.” As far as the Umee UX Chain (UX) token is concerned, it “will still exist” CEO Brent Xu clarified in a statement to Cointelegraph. The development team will make a proposal, and it “will have a call to action for the community to discuss and decide on how to manage the tokenomics [of UX],” Xu stated.

Osmosis implemented a concentrated liquidity feature for the first time on July 12. On Oct. 3, it announced that it would allow a bridged version of Bitcoin to be traded on the exchange.