A blog in Finextra takes on the topic of the effort that will be required of U.S. market participants to operate in a real time payments environment. At last, some issues are brought to light that suggest this may not be a walk in the park. There will some hard work and thorny issues that need resolution as the payments industry prepares to send and receive transactions instantly. The author points out that connecting to a real time platform may be straight forward, but……
“The real challenges may lay in integration with the back-office applications, core ledger platforms, Demand Deposit Account systems, other payment channels, and any necessary OFAC and sanctions processing solutions. For example, in order to check for funds availability, any system holding account balances must be able to be accessed in real-time. Further, can the system accept and apply transactions to the account in real-time?”
Those looking to take advantage of the global transaction capabilities that are promised with new real time platforms may have additional challenges:
“These challenges go beyond integration and require solutions with rules-based engines, dynamic mapping and intelligent routing capacity. Especially in the case of global interoperability in which orchestration and message flows are based on market schemas. Given the timeframes and the pressures to offer customers new real-time payment products, legacy system providers may not be in a position to quickly develop the required adjustments to replace their batch processing applications. Short of implementing a new back-office system, one capable of supporting real-time inquiries and postings, the use of integration engines would be the quickest and least expensive option.”
Overview by Sarah Grotta, Director, Debit Advisory Service at Mercator Advisory Group
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