Driven by fast growth in “native payments” that dispense entirely with paper checks, total automated clearing house network volume increased 4.4% in the first quarter over the year-earlier period, the ACH network’s highest quarterly increase since 2008’s fourth quarter. Michael Herd, managing director of network rules at ACH governing body …
Read More »ClearXchange Goes National But Faces Rivalry from PayPal, Fiserv
A year after its birth announcement, the clearXchange person-to-person payments platform finally is set for its first national rollout through a new service called Send & Receive Money from one of its three big-bank owners, Wells Fargo & Co. But clearXchange, whose other owners are Bank of America Corp. and …
Read More »Payments Players Start to Look to EFT to Speed up P2P Transactions
Internet PIN-debit technology provider Acculynk Inc. this summer will start a pilot for a person-to-person payment system that will rely on PIN authentication and debit card network links for money movement. The Atlanta-based company has commitments for the project from between 20 and 30 financial institutions that use Acculynk for …
Read More »Errors Plaguing Online Bill-Payment ‘Sausage Factory’ Total $720 Million in Costs
Those missing account numbers or little typos consumers make when paying bills can cost billers and others in the payments chain big bucks to fix. A recent study for automated clearing house governing body NACHA pegs the annual cost of such exception processing at about $720 million. More bad news: …
Read More »Veridian Will Be First Institution to Switch on Dwolla’s Real-Time Transfer System
Dwolla Corp. announced this week that Veridian Credit Union, Waterloo, Iowa, will be the first financial institution to use a system for real-time funds transfer that Dwolla has been working on for months and testing since earlier this year. A Dwolla spokesman says more financial institutions around the country are …
Read More »Major Merchant Backing, with Rewards, Helps Fuel Surge in ACH-Based Debit
An obscure transaction code used by the automated clearing house network for debit card payments is surging as major merchants adopt the payment method and offer significant rewards to customers who use it. The POS code, which refers to ACH debit entries initiated at an electronic terminal, accounted for 4.59 …
Read More »A ‘Hard Core’ of Check Users Likely to Resist Inducements to Convert to E-Payments
For years, the growth of electronic payments has been fueled by the conversion of check writers into card users at the point of sale, but now those days may be coming to an end. Research, as well as the experience of one major retail chain, indicates the check writers who …
Read More »Off to a Slow Start, a Database of Terminated ACH Originators Might Gain Traction Soon
One year after its creation, a database of merchants and processors that generate suspect automated clearing house transactions doesn’t have a whole lot of data yet. Backers of the Terminated Originator Database (TOD), however, expect the database to grow rapidly this year and next as word of the project spreads …
Read More »Microsoft, NACHA, And Others Outline Legal Tools Used to Disrupt Zeus Botnet
Microsoft Corp. used a trio of legal tools last month to raid an alleged cybercrime operation that had been using the infamous Zeus virus to steal funds and data from the financial-services industry, the software giant disclosed on Monday. The raids, which Microsoft and partner organizations first announced March 25, …
Read More »Facing Tighter Bank Rules, ACH Processors Turn to Another Processor for Relief
Tougher restrictions by banks are creating a business opportunity for Global eTelecom, a Fort Walton Beach, Fla.-based processor of automated clearing house transactions. While the 14-year-old company has traditionally relied on reseller agreements with independent sales organizations for new business, it’s now also pursuing deals to handle volume for other, …
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