The faster payments movement in the U.S. could be the first opportunity for corporate entities to realize true Straight through Processing (STP) of payments. Anyone involved in payments for corporate entities can see the benefits of this type of new payment opportunity.
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.
