The Faster Payments 101 tool is designed to help small- to mid-sized financial institutions understand the faster payments options in the marketplace

HERNDON, Va., March 20, 2019 – Today, NACHA and its Payments Innovation Alliance released Faster Payments 101, an educational primer designed to impart foundational understanding of faster payments and the momentum behind its adoption in the U.S. 

Faster Payments 101 is an updated version of the Introduction to Faster Payments in the U.S., an industry resource developed by NACHA and its Regional Payments Association member organizations in 2017. The Alliance’s Faster Payments Playbook Project Team has enhanced the tool as part of its broader effort of developing actionable tools to help advance faster payments in the U.S. market.

New to this primer, which is available for download, is a working definition of faster payments. The term is broadly used in the industry to indicate increased speed, convenience, and accessibility. Other enhanced content includes: 

• A timeline that details major payment milestones
• An illustration of the transaction flow of faster payments
• A snapshot of faster payments governance to demonstrate how private sector rules interact with other banking regulations
• A comparison of various attributes of a sampling of U.S. faster payments solutions, including new categories such as dollar limits and primary governance

The Alliance, comprised of a diverse membership of corporates, third-party processors, fintechs and financial institutions, with its broad understanding of the payments environment, is playing a crucial role in helping financial institutions of all sizes and types – including credit unions, and community and regional banks – gain clarity on the topic of faster payments. The Faster Payments Project Team was formed in June 2018 and currently consists of more than 60 organizations.

“The goal of the Faster Payments Project Team is to be thoughtful and inclusive as we look to develop resources that can serve the entire financial services ecosystem,” said NACHA Senior Director & Group Manager, Government & Industry Relations Bill Sullivan. “Faster Payments 101 is a necessary precursor to some of our upcoming work that is still under development as we want to provide the ‘what’ of faster payments before we delve more deeply into the ‘why’ and the ‘how.’”

“We are encouraged by the progress the Faster Payments Playbook Project Team has made since our launch in June,” said Joe Casali, AAP, NEACH Senior Vice President, Payments Innovation. “We will continue to move quickly to deliver the faster payments resources that will propel the payments industry forward.”

“We are pleased to bring together diverse industry experts to create tangible tools to help financial institutions and business end users alike better understand their faster payments options,” said Christopher Chazin, Director of North America Emerging Payments & Receivables within Citi’s Treasury & Trade Solutions division. “Many institutions will benefit from having access to these additional resources as they evaluate the appropriate options for their own organizations and their customers.”

The Project Team is also continuing its work on the Faster Payments Playbook, which is an educational and decisioning platform that will help banks, credit unions and businesses develop a faster payments strategy – from concept to reality. 

The Project Team will unveil its work on the Faster Payments Playbook thus far at Smarter. Faster. PAYMENTS 2019, which will be held May 5-8 in Orlando. Also at PAYMENTS 2019, Faster Payments Playbook Project Team Co-Leaders Casali and Sullivan will serve as panelists for “The Faster Payments Evolution” workshop on Sunday, May 5, at 1 p.m. ET. The workshop will lay out the fundamentals of faster payments and the role NACHA and the Regional Payments Associations play in the faster payments education space.

To learn more about the current efforts of the Faster Payments Playbook Project Team, download the Meeting Summary Reportfrom its most recent formal in-person meeting, which took place during the larger Alliance meeting Feb. 26-28 in Phoenix, Arizona. 

For more information on the Faster Payments Playbook initiative or to join the Alliance’s Faster Payments Playbook Project Team, visit alliance.nacha.org. 

About NACHA’s Payments Innovation Alliance
The Payments Innovation Alliance is a 200-plus membership organization that brings together diverse, global stakeholders to support payments innovation. Through collaboration, discussion, debate, education, networking and special projects, the Alliance seeks to grow and advance payments and payments technology to better meet and serve the needs of the evolving industry. For more information and to learn how to join, visit www.nacha.org/content/payments-innovation-alliance.

About The Faster Payments Playbook Project Team
The Faster Payments Playbook Project Team is working to develop tools for FIs and business end users that are seeking direction and clarity on faster payments. They will create tangible tools to help organizations better understand faster payments options, make decisions and develop go-forward strategies appropriate to their customer bases and business needs.

About NACHA
NACHA is a nonprofit organization that convenes hundreds of diverse organizations to enhance and enable electronic payments and financial data exchange within the U.S. and across geographies. Through development of rules, standards, governance, education, advocacy, and in support of innovation, NACHA’s efforts benefit the providers and users of those systems. NACHA leads groups focused on API standardization, authors the Quest Operating Rules for EBT and is the steward of the ACH Network, a payment system that universally connects all U.S. bank accounts and facilitates the movement of money and information. In 2018, 23 billion ACH payments valued at more than $51 trillion moved across the ACH Network.