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Same Day ACH in the U.S.: Which Companies will take Advantage of Faster Payments—and Why

Real-time processing and ISO formatted advice may prove to be a significant advantage to many corporates that endeavor to make payments quickly, securely and with additional data. 

NACHA now supports the same day settlement of most ACH credit payments. In 2017, the Clearinghouse will be releasing a Real Time Payments (RTP) system that can be utilized by any financial institution in the U.S. The U.S. banks will now be able to offer a much faster payment settlement to consumers and corporates via nationally supported systems. Between NACHA same day ACH and The Clearinghouse RTP, there are very few payments that don’t have the ability to be settled same-day with low cost options. This has the opportunity to truly change the way a corporation handles its money and interacts with both customers and vendors.

The question remains: will corporates and their processing systems have the ability to take advantage of RTP?  I think the answers is yes—for some companies.

A subset of U.S. corporates have had to previously change their systems and processes because they needed to integrate with international systems. ISO is often the defined standard for international processing of payments.

Many FIs have asked ACI to implement ISO formats for a variety of payment types because they (the FIs) had customers pushing them to support ISO standards—these are the corporates that will be ready to take advantage of RTP in the U.S. Unfortunately, there are also many other corporates that have not yet moved to ISO-supported systems, and they will find it difficult to adjust legacy systems to support (and thus take advantage) of this unique opportunity.  It is critical that organizations start making these changes now so the opportunities to enhance ‘business as usual’ can be taken advantage of immediately.  

Principal Product Manager, Transaction Banking

Kathleen is currently a Principal Product Manager in the Transaction Banking team at ACI Worldwide. Where she designs payment and reporting products for the financial institutions and corporates.   Prior to this position, she was a Sales Executive for ACI Worldwide and P&H Solutions. Prior to Joining P&H Solutions, Kathleen worked at Fiserv BANKLINK where she was a Product Manager and Trainer.  She participates and presents with many technical and industry groups such as Payment Alliance Innovation, ISO Standards Organization and NACHA.   Kathleen holds bachelor and master degrees in Mathematics and spent 8 years as a secondary Mathematics and Computer Programming teacher.