Evolving Payment Rails Make Headway Among Corporates

As the payment ecosystem evolves, the emergence of both upgraded payment infrastructure, as well as the launch of entirely new payment rails, has unlocked new value for corporate end users of these solutions. This week’s roundup of the latest in payment rail innovations finds progress on the FedNow front, while Same-Day ACH volume climbs in B2B payments. Plus, blockchain digs deeper into the Treasury department.

Federal Reserve Taps Into FedNow Testers

The Federal Reserve has recently revealed the first pilot program participants of its FedNow solution. More than 110 businesses will be testing the real-time payments technology, an initiative developed to test the functionality of the service as well as to explore potential new use cases for the tool.

In addition to the pilot program, the Federal Reserve is also reportedly planning to roll out an “ecosystem participant” program that involves financial institutions (FIs), payment service providers and other stakeholders looking to integrate real-time payments infrastructure within their own systems and operations.

ACH Network Volume Climbs

Volume on the ACH network continues to climb across a variety of payment scenarios, with B2B payments joining in on the trend. New data released from Nacha said that ACH Network volume increased nearly 9 percent year over year in the fourth quarter of 2020. Same-Day ACH volume spiked 35.7 percent, and the value of Same-Day ACH transactions increased a whopping 101.2 percent.

B2B transaction volume on the ACH Network increased 14.9 percent, hitting 1.2 billion transactions, Nacha noted, pointing to the pandemic as having a profound impact on the economy and on the adoption of electronic payment solutions. In more evidence that B2B payments are digitizing, check payments declined by more than 23 percent year over year in Q4. According to the Federal Reserve, commercial check payments dropped 12.3 percent in Q3, the most recent quarter for which data is available.

Thailand Boosts Real-Time Payments Infrastructure

Thailand is making progress in its real-time payments journey, with a new collaboration from ACI Worldwide announced this week. The company revealed in a press release that it has implemented its real-time payments technology within Thailand’s National Interbank Transaction Management and Exchange (ITMX). The initiative sees ACI enabling real-time bulk payment processing, compliant with ISO 20022 payments messaging standards. According to ACI, that has opened up real-time payments in the country to new use cases, including B2B payments.

“Thailand has experienced phenomenal year-on-year real-time payments growth of 145 percent since 2016, with consumers embracing the first wave of payments modernization. The next stage of growth, utilizing the PromptPay real-time payments network and ISO 20022 standards, will come from the merchant retail and business-to-business sectors,” said Wanna Noparbhorn, managing director, National ITMX, in a statement.

Ledgermatic Enables Corporates To Embrace Crypto

Ledgermatic is a recently launched FinTech company targeting corporates with solutions to manage digital currencies. With the ability to integrate into treasury management, banking and ERP solutions, the company aims to provide greater clarity and control as more organizations embrace both fiat and digital currencies.

In a recent interview with PYMNTS, Ledgermatic CEO Luke Sully explained that treasurers are facing challenges in integrating traditional and blockchain-based transaction data, a point of friction that will only grow as digital assets proliferate. The rise of blockchain as a payment rail, he noted, is introducing major disruption for the global payments ecosystem.

“We’re not just talking about the digitization of fiat,” he said. “We’re talking about an entirely new financial infrastructure that’s being built based on ledgers.”

HashCash Enables Blockchain Corporate Payments For US FI

HashCash Consultants revealed in a recent press release that it has secured a partnership with an unnamed U.S.-based bank to integrate HashCash’s blockchain-based B2B payment platform. According to the announcement, the company’s technology will enable the bank to streamline the financing of corporate trade with integrated and automated reconciliation, data sharing and smart contract automation. The company also noted that the FI will benefit from enhanced security as a result of blockchain immutability.