Faster payments

Profits at big banks should be solid if not spectacular; the Vermont senator proposes a hard cap on assets held by the biggest banks.

For more than a year, the central bank has been under pressure to speed the development of a real-time payment system. But it faces tough questions about what its own role should be.

The push for faster payments in the U.S. has suffered from the lack of a government mandate, which in other countries resulted in a common, streamlined system. Now it's time for the disparate U.S. platforms to come together.

The payments industry is engaged in 40 active real-time payments programs worldwide, but it's not as chaotic as it sounds — except in the U.S.

Sourcemedia's annual PayThink conference is always productive and informative, and this year's event was no exception.

Merchants increasingly fall short of security standards as digital commerce innovation pressures risk management.

As the major banks grapple with the slow and steady implementation of The Clearing House’s Real Time Payments (RTP) system, one organization, Ingo Money, is forging ahead in delivering faster payments for its clients and their customers using the card networks’ push payments rail.

More than half of U.S. financial institutions have made same-day ACH funds available without seeing any major shifts in fraud. But observers warn that as same-day ACH introduces broader access and bigger transactions, it will become a bigger temptation for fraudsters.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has been taking the lead on a federal license for fintech firms, but the central bank will decide if such companies can access the payments system and other benefits.

Uber’s corporate existence has jumped from one PR crisis to another, but the company has always been lauded for how seamlessly it handles payments. Until now.

PayPal's new Funds Now service should be the norm, according to the company, which will provide immediate funds access to small businesses in good standing.

The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication says a pre-validation system it will launch soon to catch payment message mistakes prior to dispatch should increase the number of payments reaching beneficiaries in less than 30 seconds.

Giro Zrt, a Hungarian financial services industry organization that operates a domestic automated clearing house payments network, is teaming with the payments service provider Nets A/S to create a national instant payments service.

While there are automated reconciliation and straight-through processing (STP) solutions for large businesses, small businesses, in particular, continue to be underserved due to their smaller and less frequent invoices, contends Blair Jeffery, COO of Noventis.

About half of Swift Global Payments Innovation transactions are credited within 30 minutes and many within seconds.

The advent of Faster Payments services plus Europe’s PSD2 have heightened concerns among banks about increased fraud risks. This has created opportunities for firms such as New York/Israel’s BioCatch and San Francisco’s BehavioSec, both of which develop technology around behavioral biometrics analysis.

Debit push payments proved an essential component of the ride-sharing boom, with many drivers opting to pay a fee for immediate funds throughout the day to cover fuel and other expenses. And the technology is finding fans in other niches as well.

Risk management and payments technology provider linked2pay says paycosmos has become the first independent sales organization to offer its merchants the Instant Merchant Settlements service.

One expert says the U.S. lags behind other countries, but changes are coming soon – and fast.

The biggest Nordic banks expect to launch a new piece of financial infrastructure next year, promising to dramatically speed up international transfers in one of the world’s most technologically advanced regions.