Immediate payments, faster payments, and real-time payments are interchangeable terms used to describe credits initiated by a payor, either a business or a consumer, sent to a payee, also a business or consumer. In addition to speed, these payments are always handled as individual items, not cleared for settlement in batches. The 24-hour, 365-day demand of a real-time payment system differs from other systems used at banks, which don’t operate in real time and are certainly not always available. The U.K. was the pioneer. Its system, which is called Faster Payments Service, has been operat...