Automated Clearing House

A Seattle-based startup that has been quietly testing a contactless payment system intended to be branded and controlled by merchants is now marketing the system as a way for retailers to control rising card-acceptance costs. Accelitec Inc. says its PayPilot system, which includes token dispensers, tokens equipped with chip-and-transmitter inlays, …

Although the conversion of paper checks into electronic transactions at billers' lockboxes and other central locations is growing at a torrid rate, it will level off by 2008, in part because check volumes are dropping faster than expected, according to a new research report. The 3-year-old conversion process, in which …

A proposal to impose an estimated $17 per-transaction fee on banks that enter automated clearing house transactions on behalf of payees for items returned as unauthorized has been rejected by the membership of NACHA, the Herndon, Va.-based rules-setting body for the ACH. According to a notice NACHA sent to its …

Chase Merchant Services LLC has launched a processing and consulting arm aimed at helping billers set up and manage bill-payment services. In a press briefing today, Chase executives stressed the new service, called BillPay Recurring Biller Solutions, would embrace cards as well as alternative payment types such as the automated …

Facing an unrelenting decline in paper check volume, The Federal Reserve said today it will shutter yet another check-processing operation in late 2006. Check processing will cease at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York's East Rutherford operations center and its check volume will shift to the Federal Reserve Bank …

The Federal Reserve Board of Governors expects the volume of checks the Fed processes to drop 15% this year, a sharp acceleration in the long-term decline in check volume that the central bank attributes to continuing movement by consumers and businesses to electronic transaction channels. The drop would send Fed …

A proposed method by which retailers could take checks they accept at the point of sale and convert them in a back office into electronic transactions on the automated clearing house could hinder an encouraging trend among consumers away from writing checks and toward electronic transaction channels, such as credit …

NACHA, the Herndon, Va.-based organization that establishes rules for automated clearing house transactions, is working on a business case for a new payment type that would allow merchants to collect all consumer checks they receive and convert them into electronic funds transfers in a back room or other central location. …

Online merchants are interested in alternatives to credit cards for payment, but set high hurdles for alternative payment methods to overcome, including the need for authentication, for a smooth, uninterrupted customer session, and for reasonable pricing from processors that doesn't tax merchants to develop a user base for the processors. …

An operational test of a system by which consumers could instruct their banks to pay online merchants and billers is set to take place in July, according to NACHA, the Herndon, Va.-based rule-setting association for the automated clearing house that is sponsoring the test. Participants so far include Radio Shack …