Faster payments

Digital funds transfer provider Ingo Money is launching a new software integration with Visa Direct to allow customers to initiate push-to-card payments.

Vocalink, a Mastercard company, signed a contract with Peru’s automated clearinghouse, Cámara de Compensación Electrónica, to modernize the country’s payment infrastructure, including support for real-time payments at all times.

The Fed's faster payments task force is not likely to receive welcoming feedback from current operators who aren't convinced a hands-on role for the Fed is needed.

Even the best technologies take time, making it necessary to rein in expectations about what will happen and won't happen in the coming year.

The Bank of England is upgrading the U.K.’s Real-Time Gross Settlement system. Separately, the U.K. payments authority is developing a New Payments Architecture that will upgrade Britain’s Faster Payments real-time retail system.

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.

In a letter Monday to Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jerome Powell, the four House Democrats argued that the nation’s aging payments system is contributing to economic inequality.

Financial crisis-era rebel Simple is turning to payments innovation — along with its traditional combativeness on fees and rates — to stay relevant against the many fintechs lurking at the edges of the banking world.

Banks and credit unions will have to re-engineer a number of systems to meet the eclectic demands of the generation born roughly in the last 10 to 20 years.

Banks will have to re-engineer a number of systems to meet the eclectic demands of the generation born roughly in the last 10 to 20 years.

Called Bill Pay Exchange, it will power instant bill pay for consumers from their bank or credit union accounts in a matter of seconds versus days when using the traditional bank bill pay ACH network.