Kathy Kraninger
Former Director, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
Kathy Kraninger has extensive experience in consumer protection and regulatory frameworks, focusing on maintaining balance in technology's role in finance.
Financial Technology (FinTech)
Is the Promise of Instant Payments Worth the Fraud Risk That Comes With Making Money Move Faster Than It Can Be Stopped?Instant payments promise a simpler financial world: money arrives immediately, transactions clear without waiting, and businesses gain faster access to cash. But that same speed creates a fundamental security problem. A fraudulent or mistaken payment can move from initiation to completion before a consumer or financial institution has time to intervene. The real debate, therefore, isn't whether instant payments are useful—they clearly are. It's whether fraud detection, consumer protections, and dispute mechanisms can evolve quickly enough to match the velocity of the money itself.