Waiting three to five days for funds isn’t just annoying, it quietly reshapes entire business models. I sit down with Arpit Goel, CEO of Root, to unpack why money movement in the United States still depends on slow, multi-hop workflows and how that slowness creates “float” across payroll, staffing, marketplaces, insurance, and the creator economy. When settlement is delayed, someone benefits, and Arpit makes a sharp case that incentives are the real blocker, not the lack of technology.
We dig into what Root is building in the instant payments space: a non-custodial, bank-to-bank infrastructure layer that aims to deliver true real-time payments where funds settle in seconds and can be used immediately. Arpit explains the “Zelle for businesses” idea, why it matters for enterprise disbursements, and how programmatic treasury APIs can help companies ship faster without spending a year integrating directly with a bank. We also talk about the current US real-time rails, including FedNow and RTP, and why adoption is accelerating as standards and competition push the ecosystem forward.
Then we zoom out to the trends payments leaders can’t ignore: agentic payments, fraud and liability, strong customer authentication, and the stablecoin-to-bank convergence as regulation catches up. Arpit’s final message is direct: compliance is a follower, and security needs to be years ahead as AI-driven attacks scale faster than humans ever could. Subscribe for more conversations like this, share the episode with a payments leader, and leave a review so more builders can find it.
