Nacha chief Estep to retire

Nacha turned to an inside candidate to be its CEO when current chief Janet Estep retires at the end of 2019.

Jane Larimer, the current COO and a 23-year veteran of Nacha, will assume the top job, and will be responsible for several initiatives at the association, including responsibility for ACH rules development, risk management and education. Larimer has also served as Nacha's chief counsel, and became Nacha's first COO in 2017.

Larimer leads the Nacha unit that administers the ACH Network and provides legal support for the associations' operating rules. Her work at Nacha has included initiatives in e-commerce, e-check projects, e-bill payment and presentment and electronic benefits transfers. Larimer has also practiced lending and banking law in Atlanta.

Estep joined Nacha in 2008 as president and COO before getting promoted to CEO the same year.

Steve Dalmado

Estep has advocated for faster electronic payments processing as a way for traditional financial institutions to stay competitive, as the growth of mobile payments and e-commerce took off earlier this decade. Estep won a major victory in that battle in 2017 when the Federal Reserve set its ACH plans to mirror Nacha's position.

That has helped make "faster payments" a shared goal among most banks and other stakeholders after years of stagnation and pushback from larger institutions, and near real-time processing has become a staple that supports cross-border payments and the general growth of omnichannel commerce.

A St. Olaf College graduate, Estep also served in merchant acquiring at U.S. Bank and worked in sales and marketing for a Twin Cities environmental lab. She is also a past honoree in PaymentsSource's Most Influential Women in Payments.

It's a career path that created a learning curve at Nacha. In 2017 Estep told PaymentsSource: "two skills have been most valuable. The permission I've given myself to always ask questions. This has allowed me to learn from other people and to engage in conversations that otherwise may not happen."