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Same-day transaction processing on the automated clearing house network will turn five years old this month, and while that may provide one reason for participants to celebrate, network governor Nacha issued another one Wednesday morning: both same-day transactions and same-day dollar volume are soaring.
Transactions totaled 148.7 million in the quarter ended June 30, accounting for dollar volume of a quarter of a trillion dollars. Year-over-year, those numbers are up 82.2% and 114.6%, respectively, according to Nacha’s report. Of the same-day transactions, 86.4 million were debits (up 115% over the second quarter of 2020), with 62.3 million credits (a 50% jump). For the dollar value, debits totaled $108.3 billion (a 123% increase), while credits accounted for $141.7 billion (up 108%).
While Nacha reported its overall second-quarter results in late July, it delayed the same-day figures to allow for confirmation of some of the numbers, according to a spokesperson. In sum, same-day transactions accounted for 2% of total ACH traffic in the quarter.
“These phenomenal [second-quarter] increases … speak to how the payments community has so widely accepted same-day ACH in a relatively short time,” said Jane Larimer, president and chief executive of Nacha, in a statement. With same-day processing, transactions are moved and settled on the same day they are initiated. Traditionally, ACH transactions follow a next-business-day settlement routine.
Since the launch of the same-day service in September 2016, the network has moved some $1.5 trillion on 1.2 billion transactions through June, Nacha said Wednesday. Same-day credits launched five years ago, followed by same-day debits in September 2017.
Nacha looks for some rule changes to give a further boost to same-day activity. In April, it announced a rule change that will lift the cap on same-day transactions to fully $1 million, a 10-fold increase from the current limit. That change, which has been widely requested by ACH participants, is set to go into effect next March and represents a dramatic change from the $25,000 cap the service started out with in 2016.
The decision to raise the limit follows other moves Nacha has made recently to facilitate same-day ACH. In March, the network added a new settlement window at the end of the processing day to extend the time in which banks can handle same-day items. As a result, the latest daily deadline for same-day ACH has moved to 4:45 p.m. Eastern Time, two hours later than the former cut-off. The move in part was a response to banks in the Western time zone that now have more leeway to enter same-day volume.
In related news, Certegy Payment Solutions LLC, a payments provider specializing in ACH transactions, on Wednesday launched MobilePay, a mobile app that allows home-services personnel to accept and authorize checks, convert them to an ACH transaction, and deposit funds remotely into the merchant’s bank account.
The app, available for both iOS and Android devices, allows businesses to begin accepting payments “on the go within minutes,” Certegy says. With remote deposit capture, businesses can deposit a paper check by capturing an image of it with a mobile phone.
As with a white-label buy now, pay later service the company introduced in May, the new service is aimed at businesses that want a lower-cost alternative to credit card acceptance. “Merchants and customers alike want choice and flexibility when it comes to payment methods,” said Colby Thames, chief technology officer at Clearwater, Fla.-based Certegy, in a statement. “Offering MobilePay … [brings] significant alternatives to high-fee credit card programs.”
MobilePay is based on the company’s BankPay payments platform, which Certegy says is processing more than $2 billion in ACH transactions yearly.
