David Watson, President and Chief Executive Officer of The Clearing House, joined the Leaders in Payments Podcast to discuss the rapidly evolving world of instant payments, digital currencies, how The Clearing House has evolved during its 170-plus years in the banking and payments space, career advice for aspiring payments professionals, and the safety and soundness of payments rails. This special episode first appeared on Leaders in Payments earlier this year. 

Margaret Weichert, Chief Product Officer at The Clearing House, joined the Women Leaders in Payments series to discuss her career journey in payments. This episode originally appeared as part of the Leaders in Payments Podcast.

On this special episode Margaret discusses the complexities of leadership and team dynamics, and she candidly addresses the unique challenges faced by female leaders – including strategies to navigate unconscious biases in the workplace. The episode wraps up with a focus on the importance of mentorship, and how the world of payments is rapidly evolving.

For many financial institutions (FIs), adding send capabilities is the next step in the instant payments journey. Moving from being a receive-only bank to one that also offers send requires additional functionality, including more robust fraud scoring, enhanced security features, such as multi-factor authentication or biometrics, and operational and technology considerations. 

IncredibleBank, a Wisconsin-based bank with operations in Wisconsin, Michigan, and more recently southern Florida, is adding instant payment sending capabilities to its payments strategy after initially joining the RTP^® network back in March 2020 through its technology partner, Jack Henry. In this episode, Phil Suckow, Vice President of Innovation at IncredibleBank, discusses how his team evaluated risk and operational enhancements as the bank moved to add send capabilities.

While many financial institutions initially join the RTP^® network as receive-only participants, adding sending capabilities can be done relatively quickly with a sound business plan, a thoughtful approach, and a great technology partner. ABNB Federal Credit Union, which joined the RTP network a few short months ago (May 2024), is already moving to become a send/receive participant. Cassandra Tucker, director of operations at ABNB, discusses how the Virginia-based credit union planned to add send functionality for all of its members when it started its instant payments journey earlier this year with Alacriti, its technology solutions provider. Tucker walks through how ABNB has prepared risk parameters, safeguards, support, and its entire instant payments plan in this Payments Nerds podcast.

Joe Casali, host of NEACH’s Wrestling Payments podcast, joins the show to discuss what he has learned about current instant payments trends while recording his podcast, and previews his interview with Rusiru Gunasena, SVP of RTP® Product Management at The Clearing House. Rusiru joined the Wrestling Payments Podcast earlier this month to discuss the RTP networks growth, how instant payments meet customers’ expectations for real-time interactions, and why they should be part of a financial institution’s customer-centric strategy. Listen to the full Wrestling Payments episode here on Payments Nerds, and don’t forget to subscribe to Payments Nerds and Wrestling Payments on your favorite podcast app.

Making sure employees are paid correctly each pay period is a primary focus of corporate human resources and finance teams, and their payroll provider. Usually payroll runs smoothly and employees are happy to receive their pay.  However, often there are payroll exceptions and emergencies that require employers to find alternative ways to get pay to their employees urgently. Given the nature and schedule for payroll, these payroll exceptions often happen at the end of the day or on a Friday, which makes utilizing traditional payment methods – such as checks and ACH – difficult.

Luckily, instant payments on the RTP® network are helping payroll providers and their customers speed up and streamline emergency payroll, resulting in happier employees, and reduced stress on HR and finance professionals. In this episode, hear how ADP, the global provider of talent management and payroll solutions, and J.P. Morgan, are leveraging the instant payment capabilities of the RTP network to both provide employees with emergency payroll instantly and reduce complexity with payroll exceptions.

In the transportation industry, freight factoring is a vital way for trucking and shipping companies to get paid on quickly for  freight and shipments that have been successfully delivered. These payments help trucking companies maintain positive working capital instead of waiting 30 to 90 days for an invoice to be paid by the manufacturer or supplier (the standard payment timeline in the trucking industry is 40 days or more). Lengthy payout times can break a freight company’s budget and force some companies to turn elsewhere to find the funds to cover operating costs. With factoring, a trucking or shipping business sells its accounts receivables (invoices) to a factoring company at a discount for payment within 24 hours.

Now, over the RTP^® network, freight, shipping and other companies that need to receive timely payment on invoices can benefit from factoring and receive payments instantly, cutting the time from days to seconds with the ability to receive a payment 24/7.

In this podcast, hear how Quickpay Funding, a factoring provider that helps provide a consistent cash flow to its clients, and Bank of America worked together to bring instant payments to Quickpay Funding’s trucking, shipping, freight, and service industry clients. Juan Estrada, president & CEO of Quickpay Funding, and Miyoshi Lee, head of U.S. Real-Time Payments at Bank of America, discuss how instant payments creates a competitive advantage for Quickpay, and how Bank of America helps its clients take advantage of the benefits of real-time payments.

Transit agencies and tolling authorities process millions of payments each day. Consumers and businesses pay tolls or mass transit fares to go to work, deliver goods or to simply go on vacation. It is important to make sure that electronic tolling tag accounts or mass transit accounts are funded so customers don’t miss payments or face fines for not paying tolls. Checks take time to process and ACH transactions may only post the next day, leaving a customer with an underfunded account. To reduce underfunded accounts and to help reduce bank account overdrafts, one provider of payment services to the transportation industry is turning to real-time payments on the RTP network. Conduent Transportation is offering real-time payment capabilities to tolling authorities and transportation agencies so that customers can make sure their accounts have the necessary funds. Tolling authorities can also send request-for-payments (RfP) to business users, such as trucking companies, to make sure their tolling account has enough funds to cover tolls for its trucking fleet.
 
In this episode of Payments Nerds, hear from Kathy Mertes, Vice President of Digital Payments at Conduent, a business process provider, and Eralda Hasani, Director of Immediate Payments Product Management at BNY Mellon Treasury Services, about how instant payments on the RTP network is providing a value-added service that Conduent is offering its customers through its relationship with BNY Mellon.

If you have ever participated in a real-estate transaction, either as a buyer or seller, you quickly realize that real estate doesn’t move as quickly as other transactions in today’s economy. This applies to payments as well, which typically still happen by check (most common), wire transfer or ACH payment. All three of these payment types can cause confusion, delays or errors in a real estate deal. To solve some of these payment problems, EMTranfer and KeyBank are brining real-time payments over the RTP® network to the real-estate market so customers, agents, attorneys and almost anyone who gets paid during a mortgage closing can have confirmed, immediate funds without having to worry about last minute checks or ACH payments that won’t settle until the next day.

In this episode of Payments Nerds hear from Bob Beams, who is the Founder and CEO of EMTransfer, a provider of a real-estate specific cash management platform, and Rickey Booth, who is senior manager of real-time payments at KeyBank.

Consumers often need access to funds to cover an unexpected expense, such as a flat tire or a repair to a faulty hot water heater. While there are a variety of loans available on the market, often the earliest a customer could get money into their bank account was the next day. Grain, which analyzes a consumer’s cash flow to determine eligibility, now sends loan payments instantly to customers via the RTP® network so they can have cash in hand right away – a benefit to the customer and a competitive advantage for Grain, which works with Dwolla and Cross River Bank to connect to the RTP network. Hear about Grain’s real-time payments journey and how it connected to the RTP network in order to provide customers with a better experience and access to funds instantly.

In this episode of Payments Nerds hear from Patrick De Suza, who is Chief Technology Officer at Grain, and Yasser Abou-Nasr, who is Senior VP of Product at Dwolla. Dwolla is a payments infrastructure company that is helping Grain provide real-time payments capabilities to its customers. 

The fastest growing use case on the RTP network is real-time pay and earned wage access (EWA). To give you an idea of how fast it is growing, from Q1 to Q2 this year, Instant Payroll grew 104%! RTP, in particular, makes it possible for wages to be instantly sent to a worker’s bank account … so they can use it just like cash, on the same day to pay bills, buy groceries, or pay emergency expenses.

So what is driving this trend? And is “instant” the future forall payroll? To answer these, and other questions about EWA and instant pay, this episode of Payments Nerds features Jeanniey Walden, Chief Innovation & Marketing Officer at DailyPay, a leading provider of on-demand pay solutions, and Doug McKinley, Head of Treasury Management Innovation within PNC Bank's Corporate & Institutional Banking group.

RTP, the nation’s newest payments rail, launched in November 2017 and is now celebrating its 5-year anniversary.

RTP transaction volume continues to grow at an average of 10% each quarter, and dollar value also continues to grow at the same pace. There are over 280 banks and credit unions on the network, with more joining each week. And what is really interesting about the growth, is that it is coming from financial institutions of all sizes: more than 80% of RTP participants are from smaller FIs….under $10 billion in assets.

Hear from Sarah Billings, who is senior vice president and group manager for PNC’s Payment Product, Operations and Strategy group, and Rusiru Gunasena, who is Senior Vice President, RTP Product Management and Strategy here at TCH, as they discuss the surprises RTP delivered during the past 5 years, what to expect on the RTP network as we look forward, and how real-time payments are now poised for rapid growth here in the United States.

Lithia Motors, one of the largest automobile dealers in the United States and owner of the Driveway.com used-car marketplace, recently started to send real-time payments to sellers on Driveway.com to help remove friction with the payment – which was traditionally done via check, ACH or sometimes cash. Now, with real-time payments over the RTP® network, sellers can receive payment for their vehicle even before it leaves the driveway. The result is a smoother sales process that removes the uncertainty with slower forms of payments and gets funds to the seller immediately. Lithia and Driveway.com are working with U.S. Bank to send the payments over the RTP network.

Listen to George Hines, Senior Vice President, Chief Innovation & Technology Officer at Lithia Motors and Driveway.com, and Mike Jorgensen, Head of Emerging Solutions & Strategy at U.S. Bank, describe how used car sellers are receiving real-time payments for their auto sales.

CHIPS, the high-value payment system from TCH, is highly efficient in its use of liquidity when compared to other major payment systems around the world, and effectively serves as the liquidity savings mechanism for the entire U.S. large-value payments system. It also underscores the nature of CHIPS as an early settlement system that reduces operational risk for participants, end users, and the financial system generally, and distinguishes CHIPS as a critical element of the nation’s payments infrastructure.

Hear from Jamie McAndrews, an economic consultant and CEO of TNBUSA Inc., and Richard Dzina, Senior Vice President, at The Clearing House, discuss how CHIPS more efficiently uses liquidity, which is a benefit not only to the banks on the CHIPS network, but also to the entire high-value payment system in the United States. 

One of the most exciting enhancements to the RTP^® network this year is the production availability of request for payment (RfP). For corporates, RfP provides a business with the ability to send a bill, along with the request for payment, directly to a customer’s banking app, so the customer can review the bill, and pay it all from the app. RfP allows bank and credit union customers to send payment requests to others over the RTP network. This is a game changer for the fragmented bill pay space, where some customers often have a lack of control when bills are paid. Customers sometimes pay through the bank’s app, some pay on the business’s website, some still pay by check, and others use third-party tools.

Hear how Verizon is working with Citi and BNY Mellon to offer Verizon customers the ability to receive their bill in their Citi online or mobile experience, and pay it instantly or schedule it for a later time.

Joining this episode of Payments Nerds is Andrew Haskell from BNY Mellon Treasury Services, Sant Srinivasan from Citi, and Attie Muse from Verizon.

Recently, the RTP network has started to grow quite rapidly. Currently, there are 149 financial institutions on the network and over 100 of those have joined in just the past 12 months.

Banks and credit unions that haven’t joined are starting to see the value in real-time payments. They just haven’t figured out their full real-time payment strategy yet, and naturally, they have a lot of questions.

To answer those questions, we’ve invited John Sullivan, EVP/Director of Digital & Technology Strategy at BankNewport, onto the show to share his firm’s experience with joining the RTP network.

We discuss:

• Why BankNewport decided to join the RTP network
• What the implementation process was like
• The value of being a member
• Types of transactions sent through the network
• Lessons learned through the process

Sports wagering is exploding in popularity since the Supreme Court decision in 2018 to allow it in the US. 

And that explosion is fueled by the power of real time payments.

To learn more, we invited David Roe, Chief Operating Officer at Mazooma, and Laura Listwan, SVP, Head of Commercial Payments Products at Fifth Third Bank, onto the show. David and Laura have been instrumental in pioneering the sports wagering use case for the RTP network.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Why real time payments are so important in sports wagering
• How customer retention and experience is impacted by instant withdrawals
• Why educating consumers about the benefits of the RTP Network was the biggest hurdle for Laura and David

Most people only think about payments when sending or receiving money, but behind the scenes, as many #paymentnerds know, there’s a number of moving parts in the payment process.

Rachel Pike, Chief Growth Officer at Modern Treasury, guides us through the roadmap of the payment lifecycle to discuss: 

• The Evolution of the Real-Time Payments 
• Delivering a Delightful Customer Experience 
• RTP System’s Biggest Challenges 
• What's next for the RTP^® network

Across America, the need for at-home banking has risen, along with the need for real-time capabilities.

As more Americans have taken a hold of their finances, more financial services are moving the needle faster than ever before to meet customer expectations of 24/7/365 control and access.

Carlos Rotger & Steven Bernstein were guests on the Payments Nerds podcast, talking specifically about a digital savings product utilizing the RTP® network that has evolved between their two companies.

In this episode, we talk all about:

• Why consumers are using this product and vocalizing their needs
• How J.P. Morgan Chase & Digit work together to make this happen
• The search for electronification and instantaneous payments today
• How instantaneous payments have eternally shaped financial services

For small businesses, cash flow is king and is one of the most crucial aspects of business right now. Will you have enough money to operate the business in a way that is sustainable? Do you have access to your funds when you need them?

What happens when you realize at the close of business on Saturday that you need access to funds to open on Sunday? How do you operate when your money is tied up in ACH?

Adam Carter from U.S. Bank & Sarah Cichoski from Elavon, a merchant payment processing provider, talk specifically about a new real-time merchant funding product for small and medium sized businesses that uses the RTP^® network.

In this episode, we talk all about:

• Why small businesses are the ones that need real-time merchant funding the most
• How U.S. Bank & Elavon went about creating this real-time merchant product
• The overwhelming feedback they’ve received from their customers
• How using the RTP network provides a competitive advantage

As consumers, most of us expect great digital experiences.

And COVID-19 is converting the last holdouts to Amazon.

It’s time we ask the same of financial institutions.

On the latest episode of Payments Nerds, I sit down with Susan Kent, Enterprise Technology Strategist at Truist, and  Wade Hobbs, Vice President, Solution Strategy at Viewpointe.

We discuss the race behind the scenes at some of the largest financial institutions to modernize their payments.

Payments platform modernization — it’s a mouthful, but it’s why pretty soon, your payments will keep up with your contactless groceries.

We discuss:

• What payments platform modernization means
• The technologies like AI are fueling the trend
• Why COVID-19 has made digital no longer an option, but a necessity

Our listeners keep asking us: What are folks actually doing with RTP payments in their everyday lives?

Today, we want to answer that question.

In this episode of Payments Nerds, I speak with Jeff Rayis, Director of Treasury & Financial Management, Michigan State University, and Parker Nolan, FMI Scholar at Michigan State University’s Eli Broad College of Business. We discuss MSU's emergency student loan program and
how it has become one example of an RTP network case study.

Plus, we talk about:

• Why the emergency student loan program needed a boost
• How Parker won the Spartan Blockchain Innovation Competition
• How funds get delivered in real-time using the student loan app and the challenges the project had to overcome
• The future of using the RTP network at MSU

Often, banks, especially community banks, will say there's no demand for RTP®. No one's asking for this, they say. But some folks on the ground argue that isn't so. What's the scoop on RTP and fintechs?

In this episode of Payments Nerds, we speak with Jesse Honigberg, technology chief of staff, and Matt Brazda, product manager, at Cross River. Their company is helping empower millions of customers and is writing the future of banking through API-driven products. Jesse, Matt, and I discuss the demand in the marketplace from fintechs as it applies to RTP.

Plus, we talk about:

• Why RTP specifically resonates well with fintechs.
• How RTP helps facilitate developing partnerships with fintechs.
• Challenges associated with providing RTP to fintech partners.
• Opportunities that come with providing RTP to fintech partners.

Something went wrong with your direct deposit. Maybe your employee got underpaid, or the wrong deductions got taken out. Whatever the reason, their check is messed up, and they need it fixed right now. How do you fix it?

Traditionally, you had to go through direct deposit, which took days.

Now, however, Paychex has created a newer, faster way.

In this episode of Payments Nerds, we speak with Eric Wade, product manager for Paychex, a leading provider of payroll benefits and human resources services.  We discuss the new real-time payroll product offering from Paychex using the RTP® network and its benefits.

Plus, we talk about:

• How Paychex' new real-time payroll product opens up payment options for clients.
• Why banks should stand up and take notice of RTP.
• The latest trends in payroll and why this is the time to move to RTP.
• What employees and customers need to do to switch to RTP.

What do credit union members want from their payments? Is it speed? Convenience? Low costs? Rewards? A warm belly and a pat on the back? 

In this episode of Payments Nerds, we speak with Lisa Coffey, chief innovation officer at Corporate America Credit Union. We discuss how efficiency and convenience are the two key concepts for credit unions that want to meet customer expectations for payments.

Plus, we talk about:

• How credit unions should look at payments tactically.
• Why credit unions need to be more innovative than other banks.
• What's driving the move for these players to enter the payment technology marketplace?
• Why making a profit isn't about charging the retail banking customer.

Customers expect the same digital experience from the bank that they receive from retailers. But many financial institutions haven't set up the technological infrastructure they need to make that happen.

In this episode of Payments Nerds, we speak with Carrie Blankenship, director of product management at Fiserv and discuss how the back office is changing for financial institutions.

Plus, we talk about:

• Critical components for banks to consider when supporting real-time payments.
• The cross-generational nature of the digital experience.
• Will batch processing die?
• The value of a payment hub.
• Why Fiserv's approach is scalable for financial institutions looking to enable real-time payments.

People nowadays have high expectations for fast and convenient services. That does not exclude employers. In this episode of Payments Nerds, I speak with Eric Wade, product manager at Paychex. We discuss how Paychex is able to offer real-time, on-demand payroll and payment corrections.

Plus, we talk about:

• How the gig economy has altered our expectations for payroll.
• How companies are competing against employers like Walmart and Uber in terms of on-demand payment.
• Why employees and employers expect instant payroll corrections.

Faster payments mean faster fraud. With the speed of fraud, organizations need to be able to roll out a new fraud model on demand several times a year. On this episode, I interview Allegra Angus, Product Manager at NICE Actimize, about financial crime prevention.

What we talked about:

• The many ways that fraud is faster today.
• The vulnerabilities of banks and credit unions.
• The strategic importance of fraud and risk management Integrated data sources and model optimization.

Everybody wants safer and faster bill payment options.  Now, the new Real-Time Payments^® system from The Clearing House gives all financial institutions the ability to offer enhanced digital payments innovation to their customers. To talk about the current state of bill pay and the future of RTP® is payment innovator, futurist, and strategist, Peter Davey.

He discusses:

• The relationships between bank, biller, and bill payer.
• The benefits of Real-Time Payments
• The future of bill pay.

There are roughly 40 countries around the world that already have real-time payments systems. These range widely in terms of their design and the degree of economic development of those countries.

In this episode guest Leo Lipis, Managing Director at Lipis Advisors, walks us through the ways in which RTP^® in the U.S. is both similar and different from its global cousins.

Over the past few years, there’s been a concerted effort to bring faster payments to fruition.
Why is this now becoming real as opposed to when the industry has tried in the past?

The answer is simple: survival. In this episode Carl Slabicki, Director, Product Line Manager at BNY Mellon, shares more.

“We look at moving to Real-Time Payments^® as a strategic imperative.”

So says today’s guest: Mary Alice Liotta, SVP, Director, Operations at ESL Federal Credit Union — and for good reason. ESL has seen a number of exciting efficiencies in their payments arrive recently, both on the customer and the internal side.

In this episode, Mary Alice talks about how ESL’s whole team embraced RTP^® as well as some of the most exciting changes happening in their organization as a result.

Instant gratification in payments is not asking too much. It’s simply what people expect.
So why does the US lag behind when it comes to real-time payment solutions?

In this episode, we interview Steve Ledford, SVP of Products & Strategy at The Clearing House, who gives his thoughts on the development process of the RTP^® network — a real-time payments solution, including:

• Why meeting customer demands is central to innovation
• How technology has enabled real-time settlement
• Whether companies should wait for the feds to use RTP

What’s the surprising trigger that’s prompting financial institutions to initialize faster payments on the RTP^® network? Robert Mancini, Services Executive & Payments Evangelist at Finastra, has the surprising answer.

Demographics.

Banks know they need to transform themselves. For a long time they have depended on great customer service to differentiate from their competitors. But the Baby Boomer employees who embodied that customer service model are retiring in droves, and are hard to replace.

Young adults coming out of college are not interested in those jobs. So these banks have to find a new way to set themselves apart to meet the needs and expectations of their customers and wow them.

If you’re a payments nerd, you know that unfortunately, today most payment data is more big data than smart data.

What makes smart data? For many financial institutions, real-time payments (RTP^®) are the key to opening the door to vast amounts of smart data that they can use to create a whole new suite of services. By allowing RTP, financial institutions open up their architecture, according to recently interviewed Keith Riddle, President & CEO of Sherpa Technologies, a CUSO that helps credit unions transform their digital infrastructure and offerings.

Did you hear about the new payments system? Will the latest policy change help or hurt folks using payment systems? You’ll get answers to these questions and more in our new Payments Nerds podcast. We at The Clearing House are experts in payments.

The Clearing House operates U.S-based payments networks that clear and settle more than $2 trillion each day through wire, ACH, check image, and the RTP® network. It is the nation’s most experienced payments company, with a long track record of providing secure and reliable systems, payments innovation, and strategic thought leadership to banks and credit unions.

The payments space has never been this dynamic. There are new products, new technologies, and new policies that will disrupt the old order in ways that you need to understand.

You will hear people with some really interesting perspectives on all things payments. We want this show to be a repository of very stimulating conversations for payments nerds.

If you want to be a guest or know someone who should be a guest on the podcast, please reach out to Melissa Luther, Marketing Director, The Clearing House.