Nacha Pushes New ACH Rules to Spur Global Adoption

Nacha is making some changes to improve the efficiency and ease of use of International ACH Transactions (IATs).

These changes were enabled by five rules changes approved by Nacha voting members, the organization said in a Tuesday (Oct. 14) press release.

To make it easier for ACH originators and originating depository financial institutions to determine whether a payment should be classified as an IAT, Nacha has refined the definition of an IAT, according to the release.

To enhance transaction and data efficiency, the organization has added the capability to carry a person’s date of birth for sanctions screening; added a new return reason to indicate an issue with sanctions screening; recognized the possibility that the financial agency outside the United States is a non-traditional account-holding institution or organization; and required U.S. financial institutions to register IAT-specific contacts in Nacha’s ACH Contact Registry, the release said.

When Nacha announced in March that it was seeking comments on proposals to update IAT rules, Amy Morris, Nacha senior director, ACH Network Rules, said in a blog post that IAT contacts were previously optional but would be made mandatory by the rules change.

In that post, Nacha said it requested comment on the proposed changes because the organization believes IATs could be used much more often than they already are. In 2024, about 121 million IATs were made, including both debits and credits.

The rules changes proposed at the time aimed to “increase the usefulness of IAT as a transaction, reduce the time and effort spent on exceptions, and ensure that we are carrying useful information with the transaction,” Morris said.

“Many corporates that I talk to do not know that IAT exists,” Morris said. “They did not know that there was another way to initiate or receive an international transaction other than a wire.”

In the Tuesday press release announcing the adoption of rules changes, Nacha President and CEO Jane Larimer said: “The U.S. ACH Network has supported the capability to send and receive cross-border ACH payments for decades. These Rules changes should make IATs easier and more efficient to use.”

Nacha reported in July that, overall, the ACH Network saw 5% growth in the volume of payments and 7.9% growth in the value of payments during the second quarter.