Foster draft bill would have Fed test real-time supervisory software

Rep. Bill Foster of Illinois released a discussion draft, the Real-Time Regulatory Study Act of 2026, on Thursday (Nov. 5) that would direct the Federal Reserve Board to work with other financial regulators to develop, test and publicly release open-source demonstration software, according to a press release cited by PYMNTS.1

Foster's office said AI-powered financial services and payments that move at all hours can help transmit stress faster across the financial system, Roll Call reported Friday (Nov. 6), as relayed by PYMNTS.1 Foster wrote in American Banker on Nov. 5 that examiners work with old information such as overnight batch accounting, manually consolidated datasets and periodic filings often aggregated by the bank itself.2

The project would assess whether regulators could get real-time information about the health of banks and other financial institutions while making regulatory reporting easier and less costly, the release said.1

The Fed would seek technical contributions from financial institutions, technology providers, open-source organizations and researchers, and Foster wrote that regulators would issue a request for contributions.12

Foster wrote that regulators would test the software on synthetic data and publish a report on its potential impact on financial stability, cybersecurity, maintenance and cost, and would examine risks such as compromise of a widely shared software component.2

Foster wrote that the effort carries no new mandate for firms and no new supervisory authority; a Foster spokesperson told Roll Call the software would provide standard formats for regulatory data and tools to manage and transmit it, which could reduce manual reporting work at small institutions.12