A group of U.S. banks have announced their intention to reboot their digital payments network, clearXchange, and combine it with Early Warning, a bank-owned fraud prevention and risk management company. 

The complementary assets of the combined companies is intended to bring unprecedented speed, security and efficiency to U.S. payments, enabling financial institutions to meet consumers, businesses and government customers' demand for real-time payments, according to a press release.

As part of the transaction, U.S. Bank and PNC are expected to join Bank of America, BB&T, Capital One, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo as owners of Early Warning, pending completion of all applicable regulatory reviews.

"The bank CEOs are providing leadership at a time when the industry is looking for guidance and customers' expectations have rapidly evolved,” said Paul Finch, CEO of Early Warning. "With this acquisition, Early Warning is bringing together immediate funds availability, integrated authentication and fraud management capabilities into a single platform. The resulting security, reliability and consistency among financial institution payment services will provide a required catalyst to advance real-time payments."