Proposed Payment Account Standard Terms

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Research, not advice. Part of the Bitcoin research archive (October 2026). Claims labelled unverified, contested or fringe are reported, not endorsed; statuses of bills and rules are as of the date checked. Government, court and patent records are public domain; the research notes are CC BY 4.0.

Proposed Payment Account Standard Terms

                                                                                            Implementing
Topic                     Term                                                              Document
Available                 Only those services for which the Reserve                         PSR Policy
Services                  Banks can automatically reject transactions that
                          would cause an overdraft would be permitted to
                          settle in a Payment Account (i.e., currently, the
                          Fedwire® Funds Service, the FedNow® Service,
                          National Settlement Service, and the Fedwire
                          Securities Service for securities transfers free of
                          payment).1
Correspondent             A Payment Account holder may not act as a                         PSR Policy
Prohibition               “Correspondent” as defined in the Reserve Bank
                          Operating Circular No. 1 (OC 1) by permitting
                          other legally eligible institutions to settle their
                          services activity directly in the Payment
                          Account.2
Respondent                A Payment Account holder may not act as a                         PSR Policy
Prohibition               “Respondent” as defined by OC 1 by settling its
                          services activity directly in another institution’s
                          Master Account.
Illicit Finance           A Payment Account holder may be required to                       PSR Policy
Risk                      provide information to demonstrate its
                          compliance with BSA/AML and Office of
                          Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) requirements.
Discount                  Payment Account holders would not be                              Regulation A
Window                    permitted to access credit from the discount
                          window.
Interest on               Balances in a Payment Account would not                           Regulation D
Balances                  receive interest.
Excess Balance            A Payment Account holder would not be                             Regulation D
Account (EBA)             permitted to participate in an EBA.
Participation3
Review                    Review of Payment Account requests would                          Account
Timeline                  generally be completed within 90 calendar days                    Access
                          of receiving all requested documents.                             Guidelines

1 “Fedwire” and “FedNow” are service marks of the Federal Reserve Banks. A list of marks related to financial
services products that are offered to financial institutions by the Federal Reserve Banks is available at
FRBservices.org®.
2 See Reserve Banks’ Operating Circular 1 (Accounts), § 2.3, available at FRBservices.org.
3An EBA is a limited-purpose account at a Reserve Bank established for one or more institutions (participants)
that are eligible to earn interest on balances held at the Reserve Banks. EBAs are managed by agents that hold
Master Accounts. Balances maintained in EBAs may not be used for general payments or other activities, but
participants may ask their agents to transfer EBA balances to another account (such as that of a correspondent) for
purposes of making payments. There is no limit on balances that can be maintained in an EBA.