Right now, you hold your money digitally with a bank. The bank holds its money digitally with the Fed. If your bank caught fire, the bank and its insurers would

Right now, you hold your money digitally with a bank. The bank holds its money digitally with the Fed. If your bank caught fire, the bank and its insurers would be responsible for getting you your money back. A CBDC would mean cutting out the bank - you would hold your money digitally with the Fed, and the Fed would be liable for it. FedNow creates a ledger that allows two banks holding their money digitally with the Fed make an instant transfer. You never become a direct customer of the Fed, but your bank and the bank of the person you're exchanging money with - both already Fed customers - have a quicker way to record the transfer. The only relation between FedNow and a CBDC is that the Fed is involved, and, like, computers, I guess? Other than that, their mechanisms and effects have very little in common.