Faster payments

While equity prices drop an average 5% at big banks, bosses express confidence in the U.S. economy; the bank appoints new managers in payments, consumer banking and marketing.

Whatever the central bank decides, it is sure to ruffle a lot of feathers in the industry.

Proponents of real-time payments systems say banks must embrace them given consumer demand for more immediacy and transparency, even if criminals will try to exploit them.

As U.S. banks move toward faster payments, they should heed the lessons U.K. banks learned about criminals after launching their real-time transaction system, says Varo Money's fraud strategy leader.

A year after its launch, Zelle’s P2P payment volume has rapidly expanded through usage at the nation’s largest banks. But enabling smaller institutions to offer it to their customers is proving to be more challenging.

Data from real-time payments creates powerful opportunities for upselling and cross-selling because it reveals what, when, and how people and businesses actually consume, writes Michael J. Alfonsi, senior vice president of digital solutions and strategy at Exela Technologies.

To make commercial cards more viable, stakeholders in the B2B payments ecosystem need to break down traditional constructs and dynamically price card transactions so that they complement the commercial relationship between buyers and supplier, according to Dean Leavitt, CEO of Boost Payment Systems.

Data that exists as static facts and figures on a spreadsheet often has little in-the-moment value. But when it's real-time and expressed as a dynamic visualization, it becomes instantly digestible and increasingly actionable, according to Michael J. Alfonsi, senior vice president of digital solutions and strategy at Exela Technologies.

As the Federal Reserve guides the U.S. on its steady march toward a faster payments system, a thorny issue continues to plague some of the most prominent efforts: Could the smaller banks stay abreast of the technologies that larger banks are readily supporting and deploying?

Companies that rely on contract work also depend on diversifying revenue streams, a cycle that will repeatedly place fresh stress on an already complicated payroll system.