Study: Real-Time Payments Expected By 2018

By Pete Rizzo (@pete_rizzo_) 

Financial industry professionals believe that real-time payments and a fuller corporate mobile/tablet banking solution will be universally available by 2018, a newly released survey from electronic payments provider ACI Worldwide revealed on October 9.

Conducted this September at Sibos 2013, the study uncovered that 83 percent of financial industry professionals agree that real-time payments will be widely available within the next five years. Sixty-five percent said a corporate mobile banking solution would be on the market by that time.

“We’ve long anticipated the move toward real-time payments, and the response from both these survey participants and the community at large further validates our belief,” Paul Thomalla, senior vice president at ACI Worldwide, said in an October 9 statement.

Thomalla went on to discuss how the same desire for convenience that drove consumer mobile payment options is taking place in the corporate world. Still, the study did more than simply provide projections – It also illuminated the remaining barriers that are holding back these innovations.

For more insights and analysis, we break down ACI Worldwide’s findings in this PYMNTS.com Data point.

The Biggest Barrier To Real-Time Payments Innovation

FI professionals believe the biggest obstacle to real-time payments to be payment silos, the study found. Seventy-seven percent of the respondents cited this industry fixture as “the biggest hindrance to increased innovation.”

FI professionals said payment silos prevent introducing new concepts and implementing regulatory updates. However, the report indicated that by migrating to a responsive, enterprise payments platform, FIs could more readily address these issues.

Corporate Mobile Banking Roadblocks

ACI found mobile devices are fast becoming the default solution for banking activities such as approving wire payments and monitoring cash flow, but that FIs have not yet adopted corporate mobile banking as part of a larger online banking strategy.

“To drive the necessary innovation, successful companies will take a universal, enterprise-wide approach to payments infrastructure,” Thomalla said on October 9.

The findings echo an April report from banking and payments technology provider FIS that revealed consumers desire real-time payments, and look to their FIs to facilitate these transactions.

To reveal which services consumers most desire real-time payments for, read a supplementary report from FIS here.