Faster Payments Leap Ahead As Nacha Sees a 47% Jump in Same-Day ACH Volumes

Since the 2016 launch of same-day automated clearing house payments, the payment type has done nothing but grow. The 2024 second quarter is no exception, with the latest figures showing 292.3 million transactions, a 46.6% increase from 199.4 million in 2023’s second quarter, according to Nacha, which administers the ACH network.

Same-day ACH value of $803.3 billion in the second quarter is up 31.1% from $612.6 billion in the year-ago quarter.

Driving this growth is an increase in the number of use cases, such as business-to-business payments, tax payments, insurance claims, merchant settlements, and cash concentration, says Daniel Roth, Nacha’s senior director of communications. Cash concentration is a treasury term that involves the pooling of cash funds from different accounts into a single centralized account. “Same-day ACH is experiencing significant growth due to its broad benefits to meet various faster-payment needs,” Roth says in an email to Digital Transactions News. Same-day ACH transactions also recorded a 47% increase in 2024’s first quarter.

Nacha says B2B ACH volume increased to 1.8 billion transactions, up 10.9% from 1.6 billion in the year prior quarter. Other ACH payment types also grew, with direct-deposit transactions reaching 2.1 billion payments, up 2.9% from a year ago, and health insurance claims on the ACH increasing 2.8% to 125.7 million payments.

Internet payments, which Nacha launched in 2001, totaled 2.6 billion in the second quarter, up 8.3%. Peer-to-peer payments recorded the most growth in the quarter, reaching 93.3 million payments, up 13.9% from a year ago.

Because the overall volume of P2P ACH payments may be smaller than, say, B2B ACH payments, its growth may have higher rates, Roth says. Still, demand for this type of payment is growing. “As consumers continue to become more comfortable with and rely on the various tools available for sending and receiving P2P payments, we anticipate that volume to continue to see large growth,” Roth says.

Overall ACH volume stood at 8.3 billion transactions, with 4.7 billion debits and 3.7 billion credits, though the figures have been rounded by Nacha. That’s a 6.4% increase from 7.8 billion transactions in the second quarter last year.

Nacha also is updating the ACH system. Earlier this year, it approved new rules to curb credit-push fraud and released materials to educate consumers about money mule activity.

Also, Nacha posted new rules to help financial institutions thwart more ACH fraud. “These rules define a role for receiving financial institutions (RDFIs) in fraud detection, allowing them to delay funds availability and return suspicious transactions,” Roth says. “Nacha is also making several enhancements to the Risk Management Portal to enable financial institutions to contact one another more easily when they receive a suspicious payment or need to return a payment that may be fraudulent.”