November, 2024

• 1 November

  Is Visa a Debit Monopolist?

  

  The U.S. Justice Department has sued Visa—again—this time over its debit network practices. The case is far from cut-and-dried. The global financial ecosystem has become incredibly interconnected with the Lawsuits alleging anti-competitive practices are nothing new to Visa Inc. After all, the network, as well as MasterCard Inc., have been …

October, 2024

• 1 October

  Accounting for Account-to-Account

  

  Driven in part by the rise of open banking and real-time technology, account-to-account payments are poised to disrupt the legacy card networks. When it comes to what makes a payment option attractive to consumers and merchants, account-to-account payments have the key ingredients: real-time transfer of funds, convenience, and a lower …

September, 2024

• 1 September

  Where the CCCA Goes Wrong

  

  The bill may look sensible on the surface. But it’s a mistake to try conjuring up competition by diktat. Since his unsuccessful efforts in 2008 and 2009 to impose price controls on merchants’ card-acceptance costs, longtime payments-industry nemesis Sen. Ricard Durbin, D-Ill., has been on a crusade to gut the …

April, 2024

• 1 April

  Time to Embrace FedNow’s Request for Payment

  

  The RFP is emerging as one of the most important features of real-time payments platforms. Here’s how to implement it. Request for Payment (RFP) isn’t a novel concept in banking or payments, but it will drive a lot of innovation over the next decade. Many institutions will rely on RFP …

February, 2024

• 1 February

  The ACH’s Star Still Burns Bright

  

  Despite increased competition from real-time payments networks, the automated clearing house remains a force in payments and is expected to remain one for the foreseeable future. “Ubiquitous,” “reliable,” “low-cost,” and “highly efficient” are the adjectives that payments executives seize on when asked to describe what makes the automated clearing house …

December, 2023

• 1 December

  Implementing FedNow: Four Considerations

  

  It will take some time and effort, but with proper planning and research financial institutions can minimize the hassles. Many people in banking and financial technology aren’t aware that the word “core” in “core banking provider” started out as an acronym for “Centralized Online Real-time Exchange” (or “Environment”). This “real-time” …

September, 2023

• 1 September

  How to Tap Real Time’s Potential

  

  With FedNow joining RTP in the race for real-time payments, a hugely practical service called request for payments could take off. If you’re not a payments geek, you could be forgiven for wondering what all the fuss was about when the Federal Reserve announced in July that its real-time payments …

July, 2023

• 1 July

  By 2025, Most Transactions Will Be Settled in Real Time

  

  That’s a good thing, though it’s important to understand the potential drawbacks of instant payments. By 2025, the majority of financial transactions will be settled in real time. There’s good reason for this prediction. Merchants and customers are demanding faster ways to pay or collect funds, and larger companies, as …

May, 2023

• 1 May

  The Weakest Link

  

  When fraud losses are mostly owing to consumers’ naivete, how can banks and networks react? They’re starting to figure that out. Consumers are at the heart of person-to-person payments and criminals know it. Criminals also know consumers can be the weakest link in securing P2P payments against their attacks. In …

April, 2023

• 1 April

  The Rules of the Game

  

  Regulations are coming for blockchain and crypto. Here’s what they’ll look like and how to interpret them. Blockchain and crypto had quite a year in 2022. A crash in liquidity during the first half of the year was quickly followed by the FTX collapse in the second—all of which generated …