Fed Adds Business and Analytics Tool for FedACH Service

With both the number and the value of automated clearing house (ACH) payments continuing to rise, Federal Reserve Financial Services has launched a business and analytics tool meant to help financial institutions (FIs) optimize their business strategy and day-to-day ACH operations.

The new tool, which is called the FedPayments Insights Service, generates reports on an FI’s payments that are settled through the FedACH Service, according to a Monday (Sept. 19) press release.

“The FedPayments Insights Service provides a comprehensive, easy-to-access view of an institution’s daily and historical FedACH activity, including government and commercial transactions,” Keith Melton, Federal Reserve Financial Services senior vice president and head of product management, said in the release.

The tool allows FIs to track transactions settled through the service by originator or routing transit number (RTN), generate reports on payment trends and activity, and access up to two years of detailed historical data and six years of summarized information, according to the release.

When used together with the FedPayments Reporter Service, the new FedPayments Insights Service can also identify items of interest that can then be generated automatically in the FedPayments Reporter Service and distributed within the FI or to its business customers.

“In recent years, ACH transactions have grown in both volume and total value,” Melton said. “As a result, it’s more important than ever before for financial institutions to analyze their ACH payment trends to help inform operational, risk management and strategic decisions.”

In related news, the number of payments moved by the ACH Network grew 3.5% year over year in the second quarter, reaching 7.5 billion payments, Nacha reported Aug. 2 in a press release.

Read more: ACH Network Moves 7.5B Payments Led by Same-Day Growth

During the quarter, the number of same-day ACH payments leapt 24.4% to 185 million and the number of B2B payments rose 12.3% to 1.5 billion, according to the release.

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