How the Federal Reserve Pulled Off a Once in a Generation Tech Launch (w/ Dan Anthony)

In this episode of Soul of the CIO, we sit down with Dan Anthony, CIO of FedNow at the U.S. Federal Reserve, to unpack the once-in-a-generation technology launch that’s transforming how money moves in America. FedNow is the nation’s instant payments infrastructure—processing billions of payments and trillions of dollars while operating 24/7/365 across nearly 10,000 banks. Dan shares how the Federal Reserve built a greenfield system in the cloud, scaled from a three-person tech team, and balanced speed, security, and resilience under extraordinary national stakes.

We explore:What the Federal Reserve actually does—and how its technology powers the U.S. economy Why the U.S. lagged behind other countries in instant payments How FedNow was built using lessons from Google and big tech The governance, security, and resilience required to run national payment rails The real-world impact of instant payments on underbanked Americans, small businesses, and veterans How AI, automation, and emerging technologies change the risk landscape for critical infrastructure Why today’s CIOs must think like business leaders—not just technologists From cloud architecture and real-time settlement to AI risk, career lessons, and leadership under pressure, this conversation goes deep on what modern CIO leadership looks like when failure is not an option.

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