Canadian here. This sounds like Interac eTransfer, which is available to any person sending/receiving money where the endpoints are Canadian banking institutions (all of them, I guess?).
E-transfer seems like what the American solution would have been - private banks integrating between themselves - whereas this fed solution seems like what Canada would have typically come up with. In fairness though, Canadian banks are so few and heavily regulated they can almost be considered government.
This has been such an ongoing issue in the US that a massive industry has sprung up to fill the void for "instant transfers". Paypal, Venmo, Apple/Google Pay, Square Cash, etc are all because the US financial transfer system is hopelessly outdated.
We've had this since 2003.