For the vast majority of financial institutions, implementing real-time payments will be accomplished with the help of technology partners who have the experience completing technical integrations and can be a guide to help accomplish a successful implementation for the mere fact that they have seen this and done this all before.
Last week we saw the announcement that the partnership between FIS and The Clearing House is resulting in more financial institutions completing their integrations to The Clearing House RTP system. The announcement had this to say:
FIS’ real-time payments managed service provides a complete, turnkey service for financial institutions to quickly and cost-effectively connect to the RTP® network, the real-time payment system in the United States provided by The Clearing House. The first new payments infrastructure built in the U.S. in more than 40 years, the RTP network from The Clearing House enables instantaneous settlement of payments and availability of funds for participating banks and their customers.
Offered to small-to-mid-sized banks and credit unions using FIS core banking systems, the new managed service seamlessly connects financial institutions to the RTP network from The Clearing House, enabling them to initiate and receive real-time payment transactions. Because the solution is hosted by FIS, financial institutions can take advantage of the network without the need to add staff or make significant upfront capital investments.
St. Louis, MO-based First Bank, one of the largest privately-owned banks in the U.S., and Nano Banc, a relationship-based bank headquartered in Irvine, CA, are among the first FIS core banking clients to begin real-time payments through the FIS managed service.
In a further conversation with FIS, we learned that for those financial institutions on an FIS core platform, the technical implementations are running about 45 to 60 days to incorporate transaction receive capabilities. Many financial institutions are choosing to implement receive first and acclimate their teams to an “always active” environment before considering moving on to other features like send capabilities or request-for-pay. FIS anticipates that the number of implementations will begin to ramp up quickly, given the number currently in que.
Overview by Sarah Grotta, Director, Debit and Alternative Products Advisory Service at Mercator Advisory Group
