Jack Henry Takes the Early Lead on The Clearing House’s RTP Network

As real-time payments cements itself as a payments fixture, bank processors are enthusiastically signing new clients to provide the speedy payment service. Financial-institution processor Jack Henry & Associates Inc., in particular, has been enrolling merchants at a rapid pace in The Clearing House Payment Co. LLC’s Real Time Payments network. Jack Henry says, of the 177 banks and credit unions using RTP, 118, or 66.6%, are Jack Henry clients.

In a Tuesday release, Monett, Mo.-based Jack Henry says it has another 87 clients in the onboarding process through its faster-payments hub, JHA PayCenter. The TCH RTP service debuted in 2017 and Jack Henry’s first client joined the service in December 2019. TCH says its RTP network reaches 60% of the U.S. demand-deposit accounts. Any financial institution, as long as it is a federally insured depository institution, can join the network.

Other bank processors offer access to the RTP network, too. FIS Inc. earlier this year launched RealNet, a cloud-based, software-as-a-service platform for account-to-account transactions, that incorporates RTP in addition to same-day ACH processing. And Zelle, the peer-to-peer payment network from Early Warning Services LLC, said payments on its network can be cleared and settled on the RTP network. As of a March report from ACI Worldwide Inc., the U.S. ranks ninth, at 1.2 billion transactions, among countries offering real-time payments. That volume is likely to increase fast as more banks and credit unions join real-time payments networks and the Federal Reserve launches its anticipated FedNow service in 2023.

Jack Henry says its clients have moved $325 million on the RTP network, equaling approximately 700,000 transactions.

“We’re continuing to see the increased demand for this service as new use cases emerge, and consumers and businesses expect to move money in their exact moment of need,” Rusiru Gunasena, managing director of JHA PayCenter, said in a statement. “We anticipate real-time payments will continue to generate vigorous adoption and growth as more convenience-driven businesses and consumers want to improve cash flow with faster access to their money.”