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  Why Fraudsters Look Trustworthy and Good Customers Look Suspicious 17.09.2026 24мин

  Criminals are increasingly aware of the signals banks use to identify “good customers”—and they are using that knowledge to evade detection. At the same time, legitimate customers are adopting behaviors that were once considered tried-and-true risk signals. Data breaches and privacy concerns, for example, have spurred many consumers to use VPNs, a behavior that was once viewed as a reliable fraud red flag. The result is a growing inversion of traditional fraud signals: legitimate customers can look suspicious, while sophisticated criminals can appear trustworthy. In a recent PaymentsJournal podcast, Diarmuid Thoma, Head of Fraud and Data Strategy at AtData, Jose Pallares, Senior Director of Product Management at Experian, and Jennifer Pitt, Senior Fraud Management Analyst at Javelin Strategy & Research, discussed the convergence of these patterns and how they are reshaping the fraud landscape. This ambiguity has created an environment in which bad actors are thriving and consumers are losing confidence in financial institutions. To combat this threat, financial institutions must adopt methods that are both broader and more granular to accurately identify fraud. The Rise of Manufactured Trust Technology has accelerated this shift, but the underlying challenge is familiar. Whenever fraud systems learn to identify certain behaviors, criminals adapt to avoid them. “Back when I was doing fraud review 20 years ago, if somebody was on a mobile device or a mobile number, that was slightly riskier because landlines were safer statistically,” Thoma said. “Whereas now if you gave a landline, that’s kind of a weird thing. There’s a natural part to that, and people have to keep that in mind, there are these shifts and profiles evolve.” In the past, the prevailing fraud prevention philosophy was to build models capable of detecting abnormalities and inconsistencies. However, criminals are all too aware of this strategy, and it has instead become a blueprint for avoiding detection. Artificial intelligence has also allowed bad actors to deploy these tactics at scale. With a few prompts, even technologically unsophisticated criminals can generate multiple synthetic profiles and manage them at scale. They are also becoming more patient and strategic in how they carry out illicit activities. “Once they had an account, they used to run up the account quickly, do a bust-out, and then run away,” Pitt said. “They don’t do that as much anymore. What they do is they make the account look legitimate over time. To skirt the detection on the forefront, they’re building up that identity with non-financial accounts. They might open up an email account, and once that identity becomes legitimized and verified at one organization, other organizations see it as more legitimate. It’s building that credit profile.” These capabilities have allowed bad actors to manufacture trust at a time when it is more difficult than ever to discern an individual’s intentions. This is partly because consumers have also rapidly adopted technologies like AI and social media, especially among younger and more digitally native generations. “The behavior profile of a good consumer is completely different than it was even five years ago,” Pallares said. “Fraudsters now think or look like good consumers, and consumers—from a fraud systems angle—look completely messy and risky. So how do we level up our existing fraud systems to catch and look at those things differently?” The Compounding Effects of Misclassification Beyond potential fraud losses, gaps in fraud infrastructure often cause legitimate customer activity to be misclassified as fraudulent. As a result, the customer experience suffers. These errors often occur at a time when organizations’ relationships with customers are most tenuous. “There are a lot who from early account set up are coming in and they’re spending a lot,” Thoma said. “They’re doing exactly what you’d be worried about from a commercial point of view, somebody comes in and spends a lot very fast and that’s concerning.” This exemplifies one of the main drivers of false positives: verification often hinges on a single transaction, point in time, or identity element. This short-sighted view can create significant issues for all customers, particularly high-value users. Their behaviors may raise numerous flags, as they may travel frequently, use multiple devices, and leverage a variety of payment methods. “I’ve seen from a bank perspective that good customers were off-boarded because there were signals that they thought were fraud, and it was essentially a false positive where identity elements were flagged as fraud that really weren’t,” Pitt said. “And I’ve seen bad customers get on-boarded because of the same thing. Basically, the decision was wrong, and I’ve seen that a lot.” Left unaddressed, these issues can lead to friction, abandonment, and reduced lifetime value, creating a compounding effect on operations and, ultimately, revenue. This revenue drain can go unnoticed by financial institutions. While many institutions have processes in place to measure fraud, there is often no ready gauge for fraud misclassification. “I think it’s probably a lot bigger than what we think because we just can’t measure it with any degree of accuracy,” Pallares said. “To compound the problem, there are fraud models that are being fed data, and these edge cases that result in false positives don’t make it into the fraud models for behavior. What you’re being measured on doesn’t allow for these edge cases to reduce the risk on those types of consumers.” Trust Is Not Binary The answer is not to abandon fraud signals, but to put them in context. A single transaction, device, or identity element can raise a question, but it shouldn’t determine whether a customer is trustworthy. Financial institutions should take a longitudinal approach to fraud identification, looking at how a customer’s behavior develops over time. Consistent identity markers, such as a longtime email address, established device, or history of legitimate activity can provide valuable context that an isolated anomaly can’t. This also requires fraud models that can adapt as consumer behavior changes. A behavior that once indicated risk may become commonplace, while new patterns may emerge as technology and consumer habits evolve. “Trust is not binary, it’s built,” Pallares said. “You have to look across your different consumer touchpoints and what a consumer is doing, instead of saying, ‘I verify them at account opening, go wild.’ And trust can be revoked. Anytime something looks out of the ordinary and it’s not verified, there’s certain lightweight controls that people can put in place to make sure that once-verified is not always-verified.” That broader view can’t always be found with a single institution. Fraud, payments, and customers experience teams need to share data and intelligence so that decisions are based on a more complete understanding of the customer. Extending that approach across institutions can provide an even stronger defense, particularly as fraudsters move between organizations and manufacture identities across multiple accounts. “When we talk about siloes, it’s within organizations, but it’s also across organizations and across different industries that we need to be sharing,” Pitt said. “Have they been flagged before at another organization? Wouldn’t that help your organization to know if it’s been flagged before, because you wouldn’t onboard that identity? Right now, the exact same synthetic might be used at 100 different banks because fraudsters know that banks aren’t talking.” The challenge is determining which signals represent legitimate complexity and which indicate coordinated fraud. A consumer with little financial history may simple be new to the system, while someone who rapidly establishes connections across multiple organizations may warrant greater scrutiny. The goal, then, is not to find customers who look perfect on paper. It’s to identify customers whose identities and behaviors have been earned over time. Trust Has to Be Earned In a fraud environment where appearances can be manufactured, history becomes one of the most valuable indicators of trust. Financial institutions need the technology, data, and partners to uncover that history and distinguish between customers who look trustworthy and those whose identities and behaviors have earned that trust over time. “When you’re selecting them, it has to be an uncorruptible history because now AI can create history in certain fields,” Thoma said. “In your vendor selection, you look for stuff that can give you the history that is isolated from that, that cannot be replicated, that cannot be created within a week or two and generated. It’s earned history, and that’s really important.”
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  10 Years Running, Same Day ACH Continues to Break New Ground 16.09.2026 11мин

  When Same Day ACH launched a decade ago, the primary use case was for exceptions—such as in emergency payroll transactions, time-sensitive bill payments, and other situations where traditional ACH settlement timelines were too restrictive. Those use cases remain relevant, but they represent only a fraction of how Same Day ACH is used today. As organizations have gained greater familiarity with the option and recognized the value of faster settlement, adoption has expanded dramatically. In a recent PaymentsJournal podcast, Devon Marsh, Managing Director of ACH Network Rules and Risk Management at Nacha, and Ben Danner, Senior Debit Analyst at Javelin Strategy & Research, discussed the evolution of Same Day ACH, the forces driving its growth, and the opportunities that could shape the next phase of faster payments. The broader lesson from the past decade is that payment speed is not simply a question of getting funds from one account to another as quickly as possible. For many transactions, the important consideration is finding the right balance among speed, predictability, risk management, and operational efficiency. Same Day ACH has emerged as an important part of that equation, providing faster settlement while preserving the reach and established processes of the ACH Network. A Microcosm of the ACH Network Same Day ACH began with transaction volumes in the millions. A decade later, it is used for nearly 1.5 billion transactions annually. In many respects, Same Day ACH has become a microcosm of the broader ACH Network. The average dollar value of a Same Day transaction is now nearly equivalent to the average value of transactions processed across the ACH Network overall. That convergence is significant: it suggests that Same Day ACH is no longer confined to a narrow set of specialized use cases, but it is increasingly being incorporated across the same range of payment activities served by traditional ACH. “In the decade since its launch, Same Day ACH has evolved from a credit-only transaction capped at $25,000 to a robust, mature fast rail transacting both debits and credits up to $1 million,” Marsh said. “Now, after the early introduction of debit transactions and after two increases to the per-transaction limit—with another slated for September of 2027—Same Day ACH serves every use case in the ACH Network except for international transactions.” The growth is equally striking from a dollar value perspective. Same Day ACH moved roughly $20 billion in its first year, compared with approximately $4 trillion in 2025, with the ACH Network on track to process even greater value this year. That evolution reflects more than simply increased adoption. The capabilities of Same Day ACH have expanded as well. The first phase supported credit-only transactions, while subsequent changes broadened functionality and increased transaction limits, giving organizations more flexibility in determining when faster ACH settlement makes sense. “The majority of the volume now is on debit, but the majority of the value is on ACH credit,” Danner said. “ACH credits are used for earned wage access, payroll, gig economy transfers and payouts, as well as business payments. So lots of use cases which have expanded beyond where it was initially. Thinking about debit, that’s where you’ve got the originator pulling the funds—bill payments, loan payment, subscriptions, and taxes—where all of that use has been growing as well.” Building on Existing Infrastructure One of the most important drivers of Same Day ACH adoption is something that can be easy to overlook in discussions about faster payments: the strength and ubiquity of the existing ACH infrastructure. Businesses, consumers and government agencies rely on ACH payments for payroll, bill payments, account funding, vendor payments, and other recurring or high-volume transactions. Organizations and consumers are familiar with the payment method, and financial institutions have established systems and processes for supporting it to scale. Same Day ACH builds on that foundation rather than requiring the market to adopt an entirely new payment rail. “Ease of adoption has driven the growth of Same Day ACH,” Marsh said. “Same day transactions are processed on existing infrastructure, they use existing formats, and they’re subject to the same familiar processes as future-dated ACH transactions. And they can reach virtually every deposit account in the U.S. with both debits and credits.” Danner added: “Both consumers and businesses want choice and flexibility.  Same Day is fine in many use cases or perhaps even the standard ACH transaction. The key is having that choice of speed and that flexibility to choose.” Finding the Right Speed for the Payment There are now more payment choices than ever, including instant or near-real-time options which have emerged in recent years. However, real-time payments also bring their share of considerations. Instant payments are often irrevocable and lack a debit capability. Both of these factors figure into one’s choice of payment. Although there are use cases where these payments make sense, Same Day ACH can often provide a balance of speed, efficiency, reach, and predictability—particularly for payments where immediate settlement is not essential. “We recognize that some payments travel faster than Same Day ACH, and some travel slower,” Marsh said. “Different payment scenarios have different needs based on the timing, the value, and the business processes involved.” “For a vast number of situations, we believe that Same Day ACH optimizes many of these considerations,” he said. “It provides the benefit of speed as well as the efficiency of batch processing. It enables businesses and consumers to complete payments in urgent situations.” One of the key aspects of this efficiency is that the structure and schedule of Same Day ACH transactions allow organizations time to plan and leverage these payments strategically, which can maximize the value of the payment for both payor and payee. From an accounts payable perspective, most businesses aim to hold on to funds as long as possible to optimize cash flow and liquidity. This also allows for greater accuracy within accounting metrics such as days payable outstanding and gives organizations more effective insights into their operations. Same Day ACH can provide these benefits while accelerating settlement, making it an important option between instant payments and traditional ACH. “Payments that benefit from that faster settlement time include payroll and contractor payments and transfers,” Danner said. “If you think about Same Day ACH credits, that is going to be primarily about accelerating disbursements, letting businesses get money into the account faster.” “If you think about ACH debits on the other side, it’s about accelerating the collections,” he said. “The benefit there is that the biller or that merchant can pull the funds sooner and reduce that time between the initial payment initiation and receiving those funds in their account, which has cash flow benefits.” The Next Phase of Growth From the early days of Same Day ACH, demand has been driven by a broader shift in expectations around payment speed, especially in commercial payments. That demand is likely to become even more consequential as the range of transactions eligible for Same Day ACH continues to expand. In September 2027, the Same Day ACH per-transaction limit is scheduled to increase to $10 million. The change represents one of the most significant expansions of the payment type since its introduction and could broaden the range of transactions for which Same Day ACH is economically and operationally viable. While transactions above the current $1 million per payment threshold represent a relatively small share of overall payment volume, they can represent substantial value and operational importance. Raising the limit has the potential to bring new categories of payments—and new groups of originators—into the Same Day ACH ecosystem. For some organizations, the higher threshold could also simplify payment operations by making Same Day ACH viable across a greater share of their ACH activity rather than requiring them to use different payment methods based on transaction size. “It’s about extending those capabilities and one of those being that per-payment limit, which is certainly going to expand use cases,” Danner said. “I’m thinking about use cases, and it’s things like high-value commercial real estate transactions or large enterprises needing to transfer money between accounts that need that speed. You could certainly cross that threshold into $10 million.” Commercial real estate provides one example of the opportunity. Although certain jurisdictions or transaction requirements may call for a wire transfer to execute a closing itself, Same Day ACH can potentially support other high-value activities surrounding the transaction, including commission payments and escrow funds. The first decade of Same Day ACH demonstrated that organizations value the ability to move money faster without abandoning the reach and infrastructure of ACH. The next decade could be defined by a broader question: not simply whether a payment can move faster, but how organizations can use different speeds and payment methods strategically across the operations. “Same Day ACH will continue to gain momentum as more receivers recognize its benefits,” Marsh said. “Businesses, in particular, that receive Same Day ACH transactions will begin to originate Same Day for their own payments. Originators will convert more future-dated activity to same day because their customers want it and because it’s easy to adopt.” “An increased dollar limit, demand, and ease of use will be the things that drive Same Day ACH growth in the coming decade,” he said.
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  Nacha’s Upcoming Rules Refresh Is All About Improving Clarity 10.09.2026 13мин

  ACH may be one of the payments industry’s most established networks, but it’s far from standing still. With new Rules taking effect this September—and another significant change already slated for 2028—financial institutions are facing a steady stream of adjustments that could affect how they process transactions, make funds available, and manage compliance. Earlier this year, Nacha implemented Rules aimed at bolstering financial institutions’ automated push payment fraud protections and cultivating a risk-based approach to fraud detection. This September, additional changes are coming down the pike, geared toward optimizing rules for International ACH Transactions (IATs) and funds availability for non-Same Day ACH transactions. In a recent PaymentsJournal podcast, Devon Marsh. Managing Director of ACH Network Rules and Risk Management at Nacha, and Ben Danner, Senior Debit Analyst at Javelin Strategy & Research, discussed the reasoning behind the Rules and how financial institutions should adapt to new processes and strategies. Understanding these Rules is critical, not just to maintain compliance, but also to increase efficiency and prepare for the next evolution of ACH. Calibrating Cross-Border Payments When a payment crosses a border, even if only part of the transaction does, the Rules governing it can become considerably more complicated. That is part of what Nacha is addressing with its definition of an International ACH Transaction. One of the most significant imminent changes is that the definition of IATs will be recalibrated, not replaced. “When people hear there’s a new definition, they think the definition has changed,” Marsh said. “The revision sought to provide clarity, so there is really no conceptual change in what type of transaction should be called an International ACH Transaction. What changed in the definition was the way it was worded—hopefully, it’s a more accessible definition now and Originators can understand better what they need to code as an IAT when they create an ACH entry.” When approaching the new definition, the first step for any ACH Network participant that facilitates IAT entries—including Originators, Originating Depository Financial Institutions (ODFIs), and Receiving Depository Financial Institutions (RDFIs)—is to study the definition and compare it against the types of transactions they currently process. In this process, some organizations that currently create IATs may discover that transactions they have historically considered IATs will not fall under the updated definition. Others may find that transactions previously treated as domestic payments actually meet the definition of an IAT. Once institutions have ascertained how to appropriately apply the definition, the next step is to educate personnel and begin classifying transactions accordingly. This will make the process more streamlined and better suited to the growing global economy. “It’s about clarity, which determines the obligations attached to the transaction,” Danner said. “Clarifying definitions around International ACH helps for more accurate compliance screening. It’s better, more accurate data to assess risk for all institutions across the [ACH] Network.” “Part of a larger trend is that cross-border is growing,” he said. “According to Nacha data, over 121 million IATs were processed in 2024. This shift in thinking about screening and risk monitoring and definitional clarity is even more important as cross-border volume grows.” But classification is only one part of the equation. For customers, one of the most tangible effects of a Nacha Rule change is much simpler—when can they actually use their money? The Interest of Making Funds Available That question sits at the center of another important change this September. The updated Rules around funds availability for non-Same Day ACH credit entries will change when RDFIs must make funds available—and remove a condition that has been in place for years. For many years, the Nacha Rules have stated that an RDFI that receives next-day credit entries by 5 p.m. must make those entries available to receivers by 9 a.m. local time on the settlement date. One component of the updated Rules will remove the 5 p.m. condition. Beginning Sept. 18, funds must be made available by 9 a.m. on the settlement date, regardless of when the file was received. For example, if an RDFI receives a file in a 6 a.m. file distribution from its ACH Network Operator, the institution will be expected to make the credit entries with that settlement date available by 9 a.m. “Most RDFIs that we talked with in developing this Rule already did that as a matter of practice,” Marsh said. “That 5 p.m. condition was a requirement, but posting transactions received after that wasn’t a violation. It didn’t say if you receive after 5 p.m. you can’t post; it was saying if you receive before 5 p.m., you must post.” “Most RDFIs, in the interest of making funds available to their receivers, would receive files well after 5 p.m. and make those available by 9 a.m. on the settlement date,” he said. “So, most of the RDFIs probably didn’t have a change to implement, they just had to ensure they were complying with this new Rule.” At first glance, that may sound like a relatively narrow operational adjustment. But the change illustrates a broader point: even seemingly small changes to Nacha Rules can force institutions to rethink how their systems, teams, and processes work together. And Nacha has accounted for the fact that not every institution operates on the same clock. In exploring the removal of the 5 p.m. condition, Nacha considered that there are several financial institutions located significantly east of the Atlantic Time Zone and west of the international date line. For example, there are financial institutions in the U.S. territory Guam. These institutions may receive files that are not even available to them before 9 a.m. local time on the settlement date. This is why Nacha established an exception—a carve-out for institutions that are not logically or physically capable of complying with the Rule. While these changes may cause a short-term shift for financial institutions, they can have substantial impacts for customers, including potentially earlier access to payroll, benefits, refunds, and other ACH credits. “If you think about what non-Same Day ACH credits are used for, it’s things like payroll benefits, government benefits, refunds, and invoice payments,” Danner said. “Perhaps with this change in window, it could be those payments could be available earlier, which could improve cash flow or reduce wait times—all the benefits of receiving a faster payment, particularly for these time-sensitive payments.” Streamlining Return Codes By the time the new return reason code R90 takes effect in March 2028, institutions will have plenty of time to prepare. The question is whether they will use it. “The reason we developed the new code R90 is because R16 paired two return reasons that were not necessarily logically connected,” Marsh said. “There’s returning due to sanctions obligations that the new code will take on, and R16 will remain the return reason code for account frozen.” “The best explanation for why we need to separate those out is because once the ODFI and the Originator receive a return back, they may need to do different things based on what the actual reason was,” he said. Splitting these return reasons into two separate codes is designed both to provide clarity on the origination side and to offer the RDFI a discrete code for returns related specifically to sanctions compliance obligations. There is another important difference with R90: when the clock starts. Under the usual return process, institutions generally have two banking days to return an entry, with the clock tied to the settlement date. R90 works differently. The two-day window begins when an RDFI determines that the payment has triggered its sanctions compliance obligations. In practice, this gives institutions more time to investigate a payment before the return deadline begins. For example, an RDFI might initially accept an entry but flag it for further review. If that review later determines that the payment has triggered its sanctions obligation, the two-day window starts at that point—not when the payment originally settled. “This isn’t unprecedented,” Marsh said. “There is a return reason code R23 that is used when an RDFI is notified by a Receiver that the Receiver has declined a credit entry, and that’s when the clock starts. This is similar in that respect: the clock is still two banking days, but it starts at a specific point in time.” A Long Lead Time The R90 change exemplifies Nacha’s efforts to make the ACH Network more efficient and secure for banks and their customers—but banks must still do their share. That is precisely why 2028 may deserve attention now. “It’s back to the theme of providing more accurate data,” Danner said. “It gives Originators better, clear information about what actions they’re going to need to take when a payment’s returned. This can affect the screening workflows and exceptions handling and communication and compliance procedures for OFAC compliance and risk monitoring. It’s important for ACH Operators and FIs to prepare to implement this new code.” The temptation may be to focus on the September changes and worry about R90 later. But the institutions that wait until 2028 is around the corner may find that the hardest part was never the code itself; it was everything that had to change around it. “The reason they need to start paying attention to it now is that developing a new return reason code requires programming and it requires technical development—and that could have a long lead time,” Marsh said. “Budget planning, IT planning, business requirement documentation, all those steps necessitate a longer lead time than simply a change in practice. Standing up the code is why it has a long lead time.” The broader lesson is that ACH modernization is not happening in a single leap. It’s unfolding through a series or targeted Rule changes, each designed to improve clarity, speed, security, or efficiency.
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  Why Haven’t More Financial Institutions Adopted Instant Payments? 09.09.2026 23мин

  Instant payments have quickly shifted from an emerging capability to a competitive expectation. Yet many financial institutions still struggle to justify the investment required to support them. With implementation costs, operational changes, and fraud concerns to address, it’s fair to ask: Are instant payments simply a customer convenience, or can they deliver meaningful business value? In a PaymentsJournal Podcast, Shankar Jayaraman, Director of Product Management, Real-Time Payments at Fiserv, Rusiru Gunasena, Head of Business Development for Service Providers at The Clearing House, and Ben Danner, Senior Analyst of Debit at Javelin Strategy & Research, explored why that question may already have an answer. As consumers and commercial use cases continue to expand, the decision facing financial institutions is becoming less about whether to offer instant payments and more about how soon they can. Clearing the Concerns Despite the fact that more than 1,500 financial institutions now offer instant payments through either The Clearing House’s RTP network or the Federal Reserve’s FedNow Service, more than 8,000 still do not. For many of these organizations, the barriers to adoption remain significant. One key factor is the challenge of making a bank’s payments and processes available 24/7. In addition to meeting customer expectations for around-the-clock service, financial institutions must establish prefunding requirements and ensure the proper risk controls are in place. Since instant payments are generally irrevocable, fraud prevention is a critical concern that must be fully addressed before transactions begin. For legacy banks, older, multi-tier technology stacks may not be capable of supporting instant payments. Overhauling these systems can be daunting, especially when the same payment processes have been in place for decades. Fortunately, financial institutions don’t have to navigate the transition alone. Experienced third-party service providers can handle operations such as transaction monitoring, error handling, risk mitigation, and fraud prevention, serving as a critical first line of defense. “If you are the financial institution, you’re not the first one,” said Jayaraman. “There is already someone who has cracked the problem. And there are many solution providers out there who are there to help you solve the problem.” Benefits of Joining the Network Whatever the concerns about adopting instant payments, the benefits often outweigh the risks. Most financial institutions that implement instant payments find that the customer experience improves immediately. “When a financial institution goes live on RTP, their customers discover that they can go and pull their funds sitting in a digital wallet into the institution account immediately,” said Gunasena. “They were even willing to pay to get those funds, because now they have liquid funds in their financial institution.” Instant payments also help strengthen the customer relationship by bringing it back to the financial institution. In addition, they provide rich, structured data that supports analytics and more informed decision-making. Both sending and receiving financial institutions can gain better visibility into payment activity and can make more accurate risk assessments. Some banks have even identified new revenue opportunities by offering instant payment services. “U.S. Bank launched an enhanced payment service for small businesses,” said Danner. “They’re charging to send those instant payments at a reduced rate through a subscription model to their small business service. As an issuer, this is a value add and a potential transaction revenue stream as well.” The commercial banking sector stands to benefit as well. Corporate treasuries can receive guaranteed, liquid funds immediately, improving cash flow and financial flexibility. Key Use Cases Emerge New use cases continue to emerge. The federal government has begun using instant payments for services like tax refunds, emergency payments, and other disbursements. Gig economy workers can now receive their earnings the same day, enabling them to cover immediate expenses, such as fuel, and get back to work without delay. Major issuers such as TD Bank and U.S. Bank have also rolled out instant payment capabilities for their auto dealer clients. Also on the horizon is Request for Payment, which has the potential to be a game changer by putting customers in control of authorizing the payment. “Instead of ACH debit coming and swiping your funds out of the account, now the biller will send a Request for Payment through the secure banking channels,” said Jayaraman. “You are bringing your customer back into your digital banking experience, where the customer can validate that payment—who is requesting it, for how much, what’s the purpose. Then they can agree to or deny that payment.” Making the Decision Financial institutions that are still evaluating instant payments can ease into adoption by taking a phased approach. Start by identifying the most common and pressing customer pain points, then prioritize use cases based on those needs.   Many banks have found it effective to begin with receive-only payments. However, they shouldn’t stop there—customers will eventually expect to send instant payments as well. “We should not read receive-only as the finish line, because receive is really how you get started,” said Gunasena. “To differentiate the customer experience, that’s where send comes in.” Finally, choosing an experienced partner can help create a smooth path to implementation. There are many considerations that banks and credit unions may not anticipate, but a knowledgeable partner can help identify both potential challenges and new and opportunities. Instant payments are becoming an inevitability, not only because of the speed they offer, but also because of the certainty, transparency, and enhanced customer experience they provide. Both organizations and consumers are discovering compelling new use cases across the network, transforming instant payments from a differentiating feature into an expected capability. As adoption continues to grow, instant payments are rapidly becoming a competitive differentiator. “Your customers might not be asking for it, but it is a core capability you need to have as a financial institution to service your customers for their needs in your platform,” said Jayaraman. “Otherwise, they’re going to go somewhere else and get it done as well.”
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  How BNPL Is Helping Credit Unions Strengthen Member Relationships 31.08.2026 16мин

  Every payment tells a story about a member’s financial life. The challenge for credit unions is that more of those stories are now being told somewhere else. Buy now, pay later (BNPL) has transformed from a checkout convenience into a growing part of how consumers manage cash flow, budget, and make purchasing decisions. While these installment options create flexibility for members, they also create new relationship opportunities for the financial providers that offer them—opportunities many credit unions have yet to capture. In a recent PaymentsJournal podcast, Adam Hodz, Managing Vice President of Payment and Channel Solutions at Velera, and Ben Danner, Senior Debit Analyst at Javelin Strategy and Research, discussed the evolution of BNPL usage and how credit unions can differentiate themselves by integrating BNPL  capabilities into their offerings. At its core, BNPL is about giving consumers more choice. That makes it more critical for credit unions to deliver a comprehensive suite of solutions that keeps them at the center of members’ financial lives. From Financing to Money Management In its early stages, many viewed BNPL as a modern form of layaway, allowing consumers to split larger purchases into manageable installments. While that use case still applies, today’s BNPL landscape has evolved beyond that original concept. “It’s an evolution from a financing option for large purchases into everyday money management,” Hodz said. “The buy now, pay later conversation is shifting from, ‘Can consumers finance and purchase?’ to consumers expecting flexibility in all transactional situations. Whether it’s online or in-store, they want that flexibility.” Mounting evidence shows that a significant portion of BNPL transactions are used for everyday purchases under $30, and some consumers rely on these products on a weekly basis. As installment payments become a common tool for budgeting and cash flow management, credit unions that offer only traditional card products risk falling behind evolving member expectations. “Smoothing out routine expenses, managing short-term cash flow, and helping to create a little more predictability in their budgets. If those options are available only through fintechs or merchant-driven providers, credit unions are going to risk being on the outside looking in,” Hodz said. “It’s incredibly important to offer those flexible payment channels that consumers and members are looking for to help manage their money.” Payments Are Relationship Moments One of the key reasons BNPL has become essential is that it allows credit unions to maintain a more complete view of member behavior. Today, many BNPL experiences occur outside the credit union ecosystem through fintechs and merchants. This not only limits visibility into member activity but also creates risk that members will build stronger relationships with external financial services providers. As more transactions move beyond a credit union’s reach, institutions lose opportunities to engage members through loyalty programs, personalized offers, and targeted promotions. These touchpoints are essential ways for credit unions to strengthen relationships and position their digital banking experience as the preferred destination for financial activities. The risk for credit unions is not simply losing a handful of transactions to BNPL providers—it is losing relevance during moments when members are making critical payment and financing decisions. When credit unions are absent from those moments, they also miss opportunities to capture valuable behavioral and financial insights, including emerging payment preferences and retail trends. These factors are especially important as competition across financial services continues to intensify. While fintechs may have initially focused on niche use cases, many now offer deposit accounts, debit cards, and other products that directly compete with traditional banking services. “This is especially important because payment moments are relationship moments,” Hodz said. “Every time a member chooses how to pay, finance, or manage a purchase, they are also choosing which provider they trust to help navigate that need.” “When a fintech or merchant-owned buy now, pay later provider owns that interaction, it gains visibility into member behavior, captures engagement, and builds habits that can gradually shift the financial relationship away from the credit union,” he said. Within the Sphere of Trust Despite this competitive market, credit unions have a unique opportunity to differentiate themselves from other financial services providers: the trust they have already established with members. A recent study by Velera found that nearly half of credit union members already use BNPL via providers outside their financial institution, while 38% said they would be likely to use a BNPL solution offered by their credit union. This gap represents a substantial opportunity. “Unlike fintechs or merchant providers, credit unions are not starting from a purely transactional relationship,” Hodz said. “They already have that relationship, and the credit union philosophy is driven by trust and service and financial well-being—and that the credit union is going to help build a relationship for where you’re at and meet their members where they need. That creates an advantage.” The most effective way for credit unions to capitalize on this opportunity is by embedding installment options directly into the digital and payment experiences members already trust and use every day. Doing so positions BNPL not as an external financing product, but as a natural extension of the credit union relationship. A digital-first approach gives credit unions greater control over how installment options are presented and enables them to surface relevant offers within online and mobile banking experiences. Institutions can also define qualification standards, available terms, and repayment structures that align with the broader member experience. These capabilities are particularly valuable as consumers face increasing financial pressures, including elevated interest rates, rising credit card debt, scams, and predatory lending practices. In this environment, consumers value transparency, guidance, and trusted financial partners. Additionally, as more borrowers use multiple BNPL loans, it can become difficult for consumers to track payment schedules, outstanding balances, and remaining installments. By bringing BNPL into the digital banking experience, credit unions can provide members with guidance and transparency. “It’s a way to be there at the point-of-sale with an option that your customers are looking for, but it’s also this unified banking experience with your own branding,” Danner said. “Financial institutions have built up these relationships over many years and they’ve developed a strong sense of trust with their customers, particularly credit unions.” “It’s a way to offer something new and innovative within that sphere of trust to your cardholders, meeting customers with an option of something they prefer to use,” he said. Present at the Point of Decision One approach gaining traction is debit-based BNPL. Debit cards have become a cornerstone of everyday financial activity, and extending these programs with BNPL capabilities can help credit unions expand their role in members’ purchasing decisions. “It provides access to lending solutions for your customers that also might not qualify for credit products and opens the door for them, or perhaps for those customers that don’t want to sign up for yet another credit card,” Danner said. “That gives them a point of view to financing options.” “Buy now, pay later is also something that’s attractive to the next generation of cardholders—your younger generations and your Gen Z—and pretty much all of the data shows that,” he said. “These tend to also be very debit-heavy populations. They’re going to be using their debit card and now have access to this buy now, pay later solution.” Solutions like Velera’s BNPL suite enable credit unions to offer debit flex payments, allowing them to personalize installment options in real time. On the credit side, Velera offers flex payment capabilities through Apple Pay’s pay with installments feature, bringing financing options directly into the checkout experience at more than 90% of U.S. retailers. Members can view and select installment options during an Apple Pay transaction before completing their purchase, creating a seamless point-of-sale experience. This allows credit unions to move beyond traditional post-purchase installment options. Through the digital banking experience, credit unions can establish loan qualification standards, repayment terms, and underwriting parameters. Ultimately, Velera’s platform is designed to help credit unions compete more effectively by providing a modern payment experience that meets members where they are and supports their evolving financial needs. “The significance of the expanded suite is that it gives credit unions a more complete way to participate in installment payments across both sides of the card relationship for the members who prefer to manage spending from their deposit count, as well as those using credit at checkout,” Hodz said. “That changes the game because credit unions can move from reacting after purchase to being present at the point of decision,” he said.
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  Despite Rapid Change, ACH Still Anchors the Payments Industry 25.08.2026 17мин

  Even as agentic commerce, open banking, and stablecoins have captured much of the payments industry’s attention, one of the ecosystem’s most established networks continues to prove its relevance. The ACH Network processed 5.5% more volume year-over-year through Q2 2026, reinforcing its position as a foundational rail for the next generation of digital payments. Equally notable is that this momentum was driven across all sectors and segments, including commercial, government, and consumer payments. In a recent PaymentsJournal podcast, Michael Herd, Executive Vice President of Network Administration at Nacha, and Ben Danner, Senior Debit Analyst at Javelin Strategy & Research, discussed the drivers behind growth in both ACH and Same Day ACH volume, as well as the fraud rules recently implemented to help secure transactions. Looking ahead, the ACH Network’s role may become even more significant, as scale, reach, and reliability position it to support the next generation of payment experiences. Growing Through Digitization One of the strongest drivers of the ACH Network’s growth has been B2B payments and transfers, with payment volume from this sector increasing nearly 10% through the first half of the year. This growth is partly attributable to the continued digitization of payments that were previously dominated by paper checks, including supplier payments and contractor payouts. A similar trend continues in the government sector. “A change from last year at this time is that the federal government’s payment volume is back to modest growth, it’s a bit over 3%,” Herd said. “The government has been issuing tariff refunds, depositing seed funds for the new tax-free newborn accounts, and of course, they are working on efforts to eliminate check disbursements in favor of electronic payments.” “Whereas a year ago federal government volume was flat, this year it’s back into a modest growth posture,” he said. Another growth driver has been consumer online payments and transfers, which increased approximately 6.5% through the first half of 2026. This growth has been fueled by a surge in new account-to-account (A2A) use cases and broader acceptance. “A2A payments are becoming more mainstream, these are things like your P2P and digital wallets which are growing with consumers and also use the ACH Network for disbursements,” Danner said. “There’s adoption by large merchants as well, things like pay-by-bank. The other thing is customers broadly turning towards digital ways to pay bills instead of paper checks or cash payments, moving into these wallet apps using traditional ACH.” The Same Day ACH Surge As successful as conventional ACH has been, Same Day ACH has achieved even more impressive results, with volume up more than 26% compared with the same period last year. “It is interesting that the growth drivers are the same sectors as overall ACH growth, though in different proportions,” Herd said. “It’s consumer online payments and transfers that are the strongest driver of Same Day ACH growth. We saw more than a 50% year-over-year increase in Same Day ACH payments for consumers.” “We see strong use cases for the types of transfers with A2A or wallets, but also with some types of bill payments, too,” he said. “I’m thinking about credit card bill payments. You use your card, get your bill, and make your payment from your bank account, and credit card issuers are looking to collect those funds more quickly using a Same Day ACH transfer.” B2B Same Day ACH activity has also accelerated, with volume increasing roughly 30% year-over-year. Business use cases include cash concentration, merchant settlements, tax payments and withholding remittances. However, many corporate treasurers have implemented exception processes for Same Day ACH because transactions have been capped at $1 million. These processes will likely no longer be required starting Sept. 17, 2027, when the Same Day ACH transaction cap is lifted to $10 million. This should broaden business adoption of Same Day ACH—not only because of the payment type’s speed, but also because improved visibility into payment settlement allows treasurers to better optimize liquidity and cash flow. “Same Day ACH is another tool in the treasurer’s toolkit to make business payments,” Danner said. “Think of the limit increase as being useful in terms of things like big supplier payments or commercial real estate deals, brokerage investment account funding, and insurance claims, which will now be able to move up to that $10 million limit on Same Day ACH rails. It’s about increasing the flexibilities for those making money movement decisions.” Keeping the ACH Network Secure As the volume and value moving across the ACH Network have increased, protecting transactions from the growing threat of fraud has become critical. This is why Nacha members adopted transaction monitoring rules that establish participants’ responsibilities for identifying and attempting to prevent fraudulent activity.            For scams such as business email compromise, every party in the payment chain—from the business originator initiating the payment to the financial institution receiving funds into a specific account—should have monitoring processes and procedures in place. For businesses, this can include measures such as account validation, particularly when payment account information is being used for the first time or when existing account details are changed. “That’s something that any business payment originator can utilize, which is to not trust, but to verify and validate requests to change payment information,” Herd said. “For receiving institutions, these procedures can include things like identifying deposit anomalies such as a large-dollar business payment to a consumer account. That’s one of the characteristics of a successful business email compromise that receiving institutions can attempt to identify and hopefully interdict.” “As we move forward now that these rules are in place, we’ll be looking to receive and share success stories from the field and how those successes were achieved,” he said. The Open Banking Transformation The ACH Network will likely continue to benefit as the open banking model gains traction. Many consumers already use open banking technologies or processes to provision routing and account information for ACH payments. Younger consumers, in particular, are more comfortable connecting their bank accounts to third parties to make and receive payments. A recent Nacha study found that approximately 89% of consumers under the age of 34 are comfortable linking their bank accounts to services, wallets, and apps. This contrasts sharply with older consumers, many of whom still rely on both paper checks and ACH payments to meet their financial needs. Another key difference is that older users may use a checkbook to obtain routing and account information for ACH transactions, while younger consumers may not have a checkbook at all. As a result, linking accounts through open banking services is likely to accelerate until it becomes the predominant mechanism consumers use to enroll in services and make payments. “Open banking and pay-by-bank are things that are going to grow for the younger consumer and the next-generation consumer,” Danner said. “I don’t think they will even think of it as an ACH payment anymore, it’ll be just logging into my bank account and making a bank payment.” The Future of ACH Although open banking is already here, emerging forces could alter the future of ACH payments and help sustain the ACH Network’s momentum. “ACH is going to be a common method to move U.S. dollars into and out of stablecoin and token exchange networks, and this will take place through digital wallets,” Herd said. “Digital wallets are already well-established in the ACH ecosystem today for the A2A types of transfers and to do things like investments or even things like sports gambling that run on a digital wallet model.” “There’s probably a vanguard of people that use wallets to move dollars into and out of stablecoins or other kinds of cryptos, but I think in the future it would be more commonplace to move dollars into and out of stablecoin or digitized token exchange networks that are becoming more commonplace to the general population,” he said. Along with open banking and digital assets, the future of the ACH Network, and payments more broadly, will likely involve AI agents. However, many considerations must still be ironed out before full-scale agentic commerce becomes mainstream. “I think it’s going to include authorizing and initiating ACH payments for just about all the ACH use cases,” Herd said. “There will be industry discussions around both tools and standards to enable the use of AI agents and payments, and there are also going to be conversations about what guardrails are needed around issues such as payment authorization, and also identity, authentication, and trust around the use of those AI agents.”
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  Embedded Finance: Banks’ New Growth Channel 19.08.2026 21мин

  In the past, a community bank in Connecticut could attract customers through physical branches and marketing efforts, but expanding beyond its geographic footprint was cumbersome. Today, that same bank can partner with a single independent software vendor (ISV) and unlock a channel to thousands of customers across the U.S. who were previously unreachable. In a recent PaymentsJournal podcast, George Malesky, Director of Partnership Development at Qualpay, and Don Apgar, Director of Merchant Payments at Javelin Strategy & Research, discussed how ISVs’ growing role in embedded finance is creating a new distribution strategy for financial institutions. The evolution of this model has also fundamentally shifted the role of banks. Rather than simply offering accounts and payment rails, more institutions are becoming embedded finance enablers—a strategy that can position community and regional banks as integral financial services providers. The Four-Legged Table Consumers may not ask for embedded finance by name, but they expect to pay within the apps and websites they already use—not through a separate banking portal. That expectation has carried into the business environment, where merchants across industries want payment capabilities built directly into the software they use to run their businesses. Embedded finance has emerged to meet this demand, and its success depends on four interconnected participants: sponsor banks, Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) providers, ISVs, and end customers. At the foundation is the sponsor bank, which provides regulated financial services such as holding deposits, issuing accounts, and facilitating access to payment networks. The sponsor bank is responsible for regulatory compliance, anti-money laundering (AML) and Know Your Customer (KYC) oversight, and financial risk management. BaaS firms provide the technology and operational infrastructure that makes embedded finance possible. They build the APIs that support functions such as digital onboarding, payment orchestration, underwriting automation, compliance workflows, settlement and reconciliation, and white-label capabilities. ISVa bring those capabilities directly to the businesses that need them. They are responsible for customer support and product adoption, both of which are critical to the success of an embedded finance offering. In the process, they maintain one of the model’s most valuable assets: the customer relationship. That relationship gives ISVs access to vast amounts of data about business behavior and industry-specific pain points—insight that can inform both the products they offer and the financial services layered into them. “Banks don’t naturally have these workflows,” Malesky said. “An accounting software knows exactly when a business sends invoices; a healthcare platform knows when patients are going to make payments; a property management platform knows when rent’s going to be collected. They have a more intimate knowledge, and that context allows financial services to appear exactly when and where they are needed.” The final participant in the end customer, who validates and powers the entire system. Each party plays a distinct role, and the model depends on their ability to work together. Remove one piece, and the broader embedded finance ecosystem quickly begins to break down. “Without the bank, you’d have no regulatory banking products,” Malesky said. “Without the platform, no scalable APIs or automation. Without the ISVs, there would be no customer distribution, and without the customer, there’s no adoption of revenue.” “You can think of it as a four-legged table. Take out one leg and make it wobbly,” he said. “There’s no independence here, each one of those legs makes it all come together and makes it work.” A Workflow, Not a Destination While all four participants are essential, ISVs occupy a particularly important position because they sit closest to the end customer. That position has created meaningful financial, strategic, and competitive advantages for software providers. The most obvious is a new source of revenue. Instead of relying solely on subscription fees, ISVs can participate in payment processing revenue and generate additional income from banking and financial services. These opportunities can include treasury services, lending, referrals, and deposit programs. The value extends beyond revenue. Embedded finance can bolster customer retention by bringing payments, banking, invoicing, reconciliation, and financing together within a single platform. For merchants, the convenience of managing these functions in one place can make a software platform much harder to replace. “Once that software is wrapped into the business, it’s very hard for a business owner to change software platforms,” Apgar said. “They basically have to start over, not just with their menu if they’re a restaurant, but with all of their suppliers, recipes and inventory levels. Unless the software is flat-out not working, there’s very little incentive. There’s a high barrier to change on the business owner’s part.” “When you’re a bank providing embedded finance and going along for the ride, you’ve acquired not just a customer, but a very sticky and stable customer,” he said. There is an experience advantage, too. Embedded finance allows business owners to access financial services through the same intuitive, consumer-grade digital experiences they have come to expect elsewhere. For merchants accustomed to navigating fragmented and complex financial workflows, that can represent a shift. “If you think about a restaurant owner, at 2:30 or 3:00 in the afternoon between shifts in the past, they might say, ‘I have to go out now and run to the bank,’” Malesky said. “Instead, they should be thinking about ‘I need to pay my suppliers’ and then taking 20 to 30 steps into the back office.” “Banking simply happens in the background of everything else they do, that’s where embedded financial services create additional value,” he said. “The software becomes a more complete and holistic operating system for the business, and it’s a workflow instead of a destination.” Becoming an Embedded Finance Enabler Taken together, these benefits have pushed ISVs to the forefront of embedded finance, and that shift is changing what banks need to provide. Historically, many banks viewed their role as complete once they facilitated services such as opening deposit accounts, processing ACH transfers, issuing cards, or conducting wire transfers. But as these individual services have become more commoditized, the opportunity for banks has moved upstream. Rather than providing financial products, institutions can provide the infrastructure that allows those products to become part of a broader software experience.   “Think of it as an acquirer-in-a-box, giving an ISV, PayFac, or fintech everything they need to launch financial services quickly, without building that additional infrastructure themselves,” Malesky said. “The platforms typically include API-first architecture, modern APIs that allow the ISVs to integrate banking directly into their software without expensive custom development and additional work. They want it to function just like any other cloud service.” That means delivering digital onboarding experiences through which customers can open accounts, complete KYB and KYC requirements, apply for merchant services accounts, receive underwriting decisions, and begin processing payments. Compliance is another critical piece of the equation. Banks need to provide the oversight and controls required to support embedded financial services while giving ISV partners the infrastructure to manage those obligations effectively.   “I always talk about compliance being the heaviest lift because anyone outside the industry—especially ISVs—when you come into payments and banking, you don’t quite realize everything that’s involved,” Malesky said. “That includes AML, OFAC, KYB, transaction monitoring, risk scoring, and the list goes on and on. It is an expansive requirement, for good reason, that outside of banks becomes a difficult and expensive challenge.” The customer experience matters just as much. Embedded finance platforms should offer white-label capabilities so financial services can appear seamlessly within an ISV’s platform and carry its branding. Customers should not feel as though they are being redirected to a third-party or an external website. Banks can extend this value further through merchant portfolio management. Rather than limiting reporting and risk monitoring tools to their own internal teams, they can give ISV partners visibility into merchant performance, portfolio health, and risk. The commercial model matters as well. Establishing clear revenue-sharing arrangements gives banks and ISVs a share incentive to grow the relationship and deepen the financial services offered through the platform. Finally, banks should establish mechanisms to capture and use the data generated through these partnerships. One of the most powerful advantages of embedded finance is the visibility it provides into business transactions and cash flow. That information can help banks underwrite more accurately, offer appropriate working capital, reduce credit risk, and ultimately improve customer outcomes. Shifting the Distribution Strategy All of these capabilities point to a shift in how banks can approach distribution. The institutions that provide embedded finance infrastructure are positioning themselves for a financial services landscape that won’t be defined by the largest branch network or the broadest product catalog. Instead, it will be shaped by institutions that can deliver banking services wherever businesses choose to work. For community and regional banks, that shift may seem daunting. But they don’t need to build an entire embedded finance ecosystem from scratch. Solutions like those offered by Qualpay can provide modern embedded finance APIs and onboarding workflows that connect financial institutions to ISVs—and, through those partnerships, to the broader digital economy. “They have to find the right partners and then enable their software companies to become banking distribution partners,” Malesky said. “With the right platform, banks can onboard partners in weeks instead of years, and automate all the things that we process to make the experience so seamless for their customers.” “Then, the technology becomes a multiplier. Embedded finance-era technology isn’t just an enabler of growth, it is the distribution strategy,” he said.
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  How Leading Brands Are Building Better Digital Gift Card Experiences 18.08.2026 28мин

  The gap between good and great gift card programs is widening. While most brands offer some form of gift card, the leaders are distinguishing themselves through more sophisticated direct digital experiences. Sometimes referred to as first-party or owned gift cards, direct digital gift cards are purchased through a merchant’s own website or app. As NAPCO Research uncovered in its 2026 Best Direct Digital Gift Cards Benchmark Report, conducted in partnership with BHN, direct digital gift cards represent an unoptimized revenue stream for organizations. In a recent PaymentsJournal podcast, Sarah Kositzke, Global Insights Director at Blackhawk Network (BHN), Joe Keenan, Editor-in-Chief, Total Retail, aNAPCO Media brand, and Jordan Hirschfield, Director of Prepaid at Javelin Strategy & Research, discussed the report’s findings, what they reveal about the evolving gift card landscape, and the strategies separating top performing brands from the rest. Why Gift Cards? The strongest gift card programs begin with a simple premise: gift cards are no longer a peripheral offering, but a key driver of revenue and customer engagement. That opportunity is only becoming more significant. NAPCO projects the U.S. and Canadian gift card market will reach $547 billion by 2030, with digital gift cards accounting for roughly $216 billion. This rapid growth is driven by consumers finding more reasons to buy gift cards and having more purchasing options than ever before. “Consumers are buying about nine cards across the entirety of the year, and birthdays are a great example. But it works for the holidays and it works for teacher appreciation. There’s just so many different occasions where people are looking for that right gift,” Kositzke said. “They might be like, ‘I think that so-and-so might like this brand’ and then you’ve got your multi-brand cards that help suffice for multiple things that somebody might be interested in, all the way to your open-loop cards like Visa and Mastercard,” she said. Another growth catalyst is the increasing number of gift cards purchased through loyalty and rewards programs, reflecting the broader trend toward self-use. At the same time, consumers are giving gift cards for a wider range of occasions, including appreciation, condolences, or simply to surprise and delight recipients. Even in categories where physical gifts have traditionally been the norm, gift cards are gaining traction. This is due in part to ongoing macroeconomic pressures, with many consumers operating under tighter budgets. In cases where a buyer can’t afford an entire gift, a gift card can still help the recipient put it toward a larger purchase. “Wedding gifts can be big and expensive, and maybe they just want an experience,” Hirschfield said. “It’s buying a gift card to add to that versus back in the old days when I got married and you got one piece of china. Literally, people bought me a bowl. I don’t want that anymore, and the younger generation definitely doesn’t want that, so buying that gift card is a key thing.” A Comprehensive Benchmark Report Amid this surge in prepaid popularity, NAPCO Research evaluated the state of direct digital gift card offerings. In the ninth edition of its annual report, the firm assessed 120 North American brands—110 based in the U.S., and new this year,10 in Canada. The evaluations were conducted using a secret shopper methodology, with assessors reviewing both the purchase and recipient experience and scoring each program against 147 unique criteria. These criteria encompassed the entire purchaser and recipient journey across desktop, mobile web, and mobile app platforms. “We’re looking at categories including discoverability, offering flexibility, the checkout and post-purchase experience, the recipient experience, marketing of gift cards, customer service, B2B programs, and credit card rewards,” Keenan said.  The company expanded its research to include 20 different product verticals, adding four new categories in 2026 — automotive and auto parts, discount and dollar stores, on-demand delivery services, and pet supplies. In addition to expanding its evaluation segments, NAPCO introduced new criteria this year, including AI search, group gifting, animated cards, delivery notifications, and purchase flow integrity. The report’s objective is not only to gauge the state of the gift card industry, but also to provide actionable insights. It also outlines best practices brands can use to strengthen their gift card programs, improve performance, and drive ROI. “To help them do that, we’ve created this benchmark,” Keenan said. “We have year-over-year data, and then you can look at it and take a slice of it for the 2026 year and look at how your gift card program compares to those top performers—measuring yourself against your competitors and the retail industry at large.” “It can be that learning tool to help accelerate growth within their own gift card programs,” he said. How the Top Performers Invest Overall, brands’ scores improved this year, but the average score of 67% indicates there is still room for improvement. It is perhaps no surprise that this year’s top U.S. performers were some of the country’s largest retailers: Best Buy, Amazon, and Staples. The top Canadian brands were Lululemon and The Home Depot.  “What sets these top performers apart from some of the others?” Kositzke asked. “That high score was driven by discoverability. Are we able to find your brand’s gift card within that site [or app] easily? Are you promoting that card on your site, but also on other channels as well?” “Are you offering that flexible delivery option, being able to meet that consumer where they are, being able to communicate to friends and family and colleagues exactly how you communicate with them today, but through the niceness of delivering a gift card?” she said. Another common trait among the top performers is their investment in mobile experiences. This is intentional, as mobile commerce has begun to significantly outpace desktop-driven e-commerce. As a result, brands should optimize the mobile shopping experience for both gift card buyers and recipients. For example, recipients should be able to easily redeem cards, check balances, and reload gift cards from their mobile devices. Along with delivering a digital-first experience, leading gift card programs give customers more choice. Shoppers should be able to purchase both physical and digital cards.. That same flexibility should extend to delivery. While email remains a reliable option, customers increasingly expect to send and receive gift cards through their preferred channels. “When looking at the data for this year, SMS delivery was a differentiating feature between top performers versus some of the merchants that were further down in the rankings,” Keenan said. “That’s something that organizations should think about incorporating into their own gift card program is that SMS delivery. It speaks to the growing popularity of mobile shopping.” Areas of Opportunity Despite overall improvements and a number of innovative features introduced this year, two areas continue to lag: marketing and customer service. “We check for marketing a couple of times throughout the assessment,” Kositzke said. “Especially during that holiday time frame, are you marketing your gift card program to allow people to know that you have one, and here is the best solution for gifting?” “Then also customer service, so being able to address issues and questions quickly,” she said. “Consumers are often in that mindset of, ‘Why can’t I have an answer now versus having to wait 48 hours or a week or seven days to get back to me on a question that I might have?’” One key best practice is to regularly audit the entire gift card program by completing the full purchaser and recipient journey and identifying friction points throughout the process. This step is critical because even minor points of friction can have significant downstream consequences. “You want to build a checkout experience that works every time,” Keenan said. “It seems simple and self-explanatory, but you’d be surprised at how often there are snags in the gift card purchase process. And if that process doesn’t go through the first time, chances are you’re going to lose that customer. They’re not going to come back and try it a second or third time. It needs to work  right the first time.” Much More to Uncover The brands that recognize this opportunity—and continue evolving their gift card experiences—will be the ones best positioned to turn a simple purchase into a lasting customer connection. By combining seamless mobile experiences, flexible options, and stronger promotion, organizations can unlock the full potential of gift cards as a strategic engagement channel.   That said, organizations must also remain agile as the preferences and expectations of younger consumers continue to evolve. “Younger shoppers, primarily millennials and Gen Z, are increasingly turning to gift cards for affordability issues,” Keenan said. “They’re thinking about budgeting and how they can use gift cards for their own self-use or for gifting to others.” Another force to monitor is technology, which—like every industry—has the potential to rapidly reshape the prepaid landscape. “AI is a hot topic across every industry,” Kositzke said. “This past year, we included a couple of key assessment points around AI and being able to find gift cards. But to be honest, when we did the report for our partners, one of the key questions that kept coming up was, ‘What about this with AI and what about that with AI?’” “When we think about those criteria for 2027, how do we level up some of the things around AI and how are we going to assess those?” she said. “Sometimes the most interesting things are the: ‘Hey, but we have so much more to uncover.’” Read the 9th annual benchmark report with NAPCO Research.
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  When AI Changes Fraud, Trust Becomes Everything 17.08.2026 26мин

  Trust has always been the foundation of the credit union movement. Today, that trust is facing one of its greatest tests. Artificial intelligence is making fraud more convincing, more scalable and more difficult to detect. As AI becomes more embedded in commerce, credit unions face a difficult balancing act—embracing innovation while protecting members from evolving threats. In a recent PaymentsJournal podcast, Karen Postma, Senior Vice President of Risk Solutions at Velera and Suzanne Sando, Lead Fraud Management Analyst at Javelin Strategy and Research, discussed how AI-driven fraud, deepfakes and the emergence of agentic commerce could jeopardize the critical bond between members and credit unions. Not only has this made it imperative for institutions to implement robust technological safeguards, it has also highlighted the importance of effective education and communication in maintaining strong member relationships. Questioning the Source of Truth Criminals have forged ahead in the AI arms race, largely because they aren’t constrained by compliance, operational or ethical obligations. As concerning as this is for financial institutions, consumers have also become aware of the risks as well. Many have seen first hand how AI has made fraudulent communications more convincing through sophisticated scam texts, phishing emails and other impersonation attempts. And they understand these tactics are just the tip of the iceberg. “I don’t think this is an overreaction,” Sando said. “We have information overload when it comes to AI. From a consumer perspective, you’re hearing about it in the news all the time—the good, the bad and the ugly. You’re hearing about the ethical debates and the effects on the environment. We can’t get away from it, and that may play into some of the fears that consumers have with AI.” Consumer concerns have grown as deepfakes have demonstrated how convincingly AI can mimic a person’s voice or likeness in audio and video. These tools can be used to deceive friends and family, authorize fraudulent transactions or facilitate blackmail and other scams. However, deepfakes are also indicative of the double-edged nature of AI. While consumers worry about becoming victims of these attacks, technology is also lowering the barrier for individuals to commit first-party fraud. “That happens all the time, and then they’re disputing it or claiming some type of loss when in actuality that wasn’t the case,” Postma said. “Unfortunately, the accessibility of innovation in AI has made us question everything more, versus trusting in the consumer.” “That’s a weird position to be in. The member has always been our best source of truth, and unfortunately, I don’t know that we’re in that environment any longer,” she said. The Emergence of Agentic Commerce This dual nature of technology has also raised concerns about the emergence of agentic commerce, where consumers entrust AI agents to act as autonomous personal shoppers. Consumers already use AI to compare prices, research products and find the right item. However, fully autonomous agentic commerce is an entirely different proposition. “You’re trusting an agent to understand your intent, and you’re also trusting that agent to be able to execute in the way that you would want them to,” Postma said. “Such things as understanding intent from the initiation of the prompt, all the way through the transaction, all the way to a potential dispute process—and making sure that transparency is there. That’s going to be a critical avenue where the industry is going to have to adapt and figure out how to share that information.” Beyond the foundational challenges of building these systems, fraud prevention becomes more complex. Rather than authenticating a transaction, financial institutions will also need to verify the customer’s intent and ensure the AI agent is acting according to the customer’s wishes. Introducing a third party into the traditional transaction model also creates new avenues for fraud. Both the agent and the customer will require authentication, potentially necessitating the development of Know Your Agent policies that mirror Know Your Customer requirements. This could include building profiles for AI agents that document aspects like behavioral patterns, permissions, and preferred merchants. These profiles could help identify when an agent has been compromised or manipulated. Alongside these infrastructure changes, the returns process—already a common target for fraud—will also need to evolve. “The number of disputes increases drastically—I’m using the word ‘dispute’ intentionally and not ‘fraud’—because in those cases, consumers forget that they empowered an agent to go purchase this for them,” Postma said. “They don’t recognize the transaction because they empowered that agent a couple weeks ago.” “Those kinds of things happen in that fully autonomous world, and we don’t necessarily have the infrastructure to mitigate those disputes at the moment,” she said. High Stakes and Tight Budgets As credit unions work to defend against AI-driven fraud while preparing for agentic commerce, many are developing strategies to modernize their fraud prevention programs. However, because these investments have far-reaching implications, institutions are often challenged to determine how best to allocate limited fraud prevention resources.   “Fraud is always at the bottom of budget prioritization, whether we like it or not,” Sando said. “It’s either compliance or regulation updates that take priority; it’s some enhancement that will benefit customers; it’s a new product that’s going to bring a new revenue. At the end of the day, it’s, ‘Whatever we have leftover, we’ll throw at the fraud problem.’ That’s never going to be enough if fraud doesn’t get the prioritization that it not only deserves, but it needs.” Given the high stakes and tight budgets, partnerships can provide credit unions and community banks with an effective way to balance speed to market with the need to adapt to a rapidly changing environment. “There are starting to be a number of providers in the marketplace, Velera being one of them, that allow for what we call an orchestration layer,” Postma said. “It allows the financial institution to integrate once on the back end, and it is powered by a number of different solutions. With such things as orchestrators to be able to leverage some of that technology, it becomes much more strategic and intentional around how we prevent fraud.” Education, Transparency and Trust Technology alone is not enough. Equally important are educating members and fostering transparency. Too often, banks and credit unions rely on generic fraud education that fails to resonate with customers. “You need to have real-world and contextual examples, things that are specific to someone’s demographic. Like saying: ‘We’re seeing a higher concentration of elders being targeted by a certain scam or people who are Gen Z or who use digital wallets,’” Sando said. “If you’re putting it into context, it helps put the threat into a space that doesn’t feel scary and insurmountable, but it does feel real.” As scam communications have become more convincing, many customers have begun ignoring all digital messages—including legitimate fraud alerts from their financial institution. This makes proactive, ongoing education essential. Credit unions should help members recognize common fraud tactics and understand how the institution communicates with them. Given the sophistication of today’s fraud landscape, that education must extend far beyond a handful of documents buried within an online banking website. “It’s education internally, it’s education to the consumer, and from a credit union perspective and the role that we play in communities, we have an opportunity to educate within schools and other community-based areas around what socially engineered scams are. Your member is your line of defense,” Postma said. “Educating and being transparent about what’s going on and playing a critical role, even outside of interactions that happen at the financial institution,” she said. “That becomes our most effective method.”
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  The Use Cases Propelling the FedNow® Service’s Growth—and Shaping Its Future 10.08.2026 20мин

  Customers no longer measure service in days or even hours—they measure it in seconds. Whether they’re paying employees, closing on a home, moving money between accounts, or covering an unexpected expense, they expect funds to be available immediately. That demand for speed is fueling the rapid growth of real-time payments, particularly those enabled by the Federal Reserve’s FedNow Service. In a PaymentsJournal Podcast, Bernadette Ksepka, SVP, Deputy Head of Product Management for the FedNow Service; Shankar Jayaraman, Director of NOW Network at Fiserv; and Ben Danner, Senior Analyst of Debit at Javelin Strategy and Research, discussed the use cases driving the service’s momentum and how financial institutions that have yet to join the network can position themselves to meet evolving customer expectations. Breaking Records Every Day As more use cases for FedNow go live and more institutions participate, adoption continues to accelerate. Every week, the FedNow Service is breaking its own records. It recently surpassed 1,776 financial institutions on board, which according to Ksepka is an appropriate number for a U.S. payment system to celebrate. Fifty service providers support FedNow connectivity, and new banks are joining the network almost daily. The service now reaches all 50 states and includes seven of the top U.S. banks. “And 95% of our participants are community banks and credit unions,” said Ksepka. “They’re offering instant payments alongside some of the nation’s largest institutions. This isn’t just large banks chasing new technology. A credit union in rural Montana wants the same real-time tools that a major bank in New York City wants.” Finding New Avenues for Growth FedNow’s growth is being fueled by a combination of expanding participation and an increasing number of real-world use cases. One of the fastest-growing areas is earned wage access and off-cycle payroll. Workers no longer want to wait two weeks for a paycheck, and employers are using the FedNow Service to provide access to earned wages or pay employees at the end of a shift. For many families, that can mean the difference between paying rent on time and falling behind. The service is also reshaping major life events. Homebuyers can send escrow payments instantly, while car buyers can complete financing and drive off the lot immediately—even on weekends. Digital wallet funding and defunding has emerged as another significant use case, enabling money to move seamlessly in and out of brokerage accounts, payment apps and other digital platforms. Businesses are finding value in real-time payments as well. Major fintechs are partnering with FedNow to deliver new capabilities to their customers, while small businesses are using the service to pay suppliers faster, improve cash flow, and reduce reliance on checks. For financial institutions, account-to-account transfers remain a significant opportunity. Many consumers maintain multiple accounts and increasingly expect to move money instantly between them, whether within the same institution or across different banks. Behind this growth are several structural advantages. The expanding number of participating financial institutions continues to increase the network’s reach, while FedNow’s direct participation model allows banks to settle transactions through their Fed master accounts. Another catalyst came last year with the introduction of instant government payouts, demonstrating the potential of real-time payments at scale. “FEMA was the first agency to make disbursements over FedNow through Treasury’s digital payout program,” said Ksepka. “When families are dealing with a crisis, getting those funds immediately instead of waiting days for a check to arrive and clear is not just more convenient, it’s critical. Other agencies are now using the service, with more expected to join in the near term.” Tracking Payment Numbers The growing use of the FedNow Service for larger-value transactions is evident in the numbers. As the financial institutions serving businesses use the network for everything from vendor payments and disbursements to corporate transfers and brokerage-related transactions, the average payment value has climbed well beyond that of other real-time payment networks. In 2025, according to Danner’s research, the average FedNow transaction exceeded $100,000, compared with approximately $4,000 on The Clearing House’s RTP network as of June 2025. “Adopters of FedNow are seeing more high-value B2B payments, while something like RTP is going to be more consumer-focused,” said Danner. “That being said, average value per payment has actually declined on FedNow despite the overall volume growth. That suggests broadening use cases beyond the historical high value corporate transactions. Ksepka added: “That’s the beauty of the platform. We are use-case agnostic, and it’s a platform for innovation that allows for any types of use cases.” Overcoming Concerns Financial institutions still face several obstacles when it comes to adopting instant payments. Three concerns come up repeatedly, starting with core system readiness: Is the institution prepared to process 24/7/365 real-time transactions? The second is liquidity management. How do institutions keep accounts funded when they are sending money? Is there a risk of running a negative balance? “Most of the financial institutions who are sending today have solved that by taking baby steps,” Jaramayan said. “Come in on the network. Participate in the network. Receive first. Your ability to receive payments gives you a perspective of how things are in that space. All the rest then falls in line right after, one after the other.” The third is internal prioritization. Many financial institutions approach instant payments as a technology initiative when, in reality, it’s a product decision. Every institution has competing priorities and long project backlogs, but instant payments are increasingly becoming table stakes, and customers are coming to expect these capabilities. “For late adopters, my biggest advice is don’t overthink it,” said Ksepka. “Start simple. You don’t need 10 use cases on day one. Pick one meaningful opportunity for your customers, maybe weekend auto loans or faster B2B payments. You learn from there.” FedNow Into the Future As it moves forward, the FedNow Service is focused on three goals: unlocking more innovation, strengthening security and risk mitigation, and preparing for the next wave of instant payment capabilities. That includes features such as Request for Payment and, eventually, cross-border payments. “We’re super excited about a group of innovative early adopters coming together to work with us to test these new flows, explore new features, and really help shape what 24/7 international payments look like,” Ksepka said. One of the newest tool provides sender institutions with receiver account signals to help assess risk before a payment is sent over the network. FedNow is also exploring ways to make payee name verification easier through a real-time API, giving institutions another layer of assurance before payments are made from their customers’ accounts. “The biggest message is don’t get left behind and don’t give your customers a reason to look elsewhere for financial services,” said Jarayaman. “Now is the time to adopt if you haven’t. The financial institutions who ultimately win will be the ones who treat real-time as an infrastructure, not as a feature.”
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  The Rise of Programmatic Payments and the New Compliance Challenge 06.08.2026 23мин

  A payment used to begin with a person making a decision: swiping a card, approving a transfer, or authorizing a purchase. Increasingly, that decision is being embedded into software. As programmatic payments become more common—and as agentic AI expands their reach—financial institutions must adapt to a landscape where transactions may be initiated by systems acting on behalf of businesses and consumers. The opportunity is significant, but so is the challenge of ensuring those systems behave as intended.   In a PaymentsJournal Podcast, FinScan’s Kieran Holland, Global Head of Solutions Engineering, and Chris Ostrowski, Head of Product Management, as well as James Wester, Co-Head of Payments at Javelin Strategy and Research, explored the present and future of programmatic payments—from the rise of automated transactions to the new demands they create for fraud prevention, compliance, and oversight. A World of Multiple Payments One reason programmatic payments have become increasingly important is that financial activity is becoming more continuous and embedded into everyday processes. Instead of a handful of large, manually initiated payments, businesses and consumers are relying on a steady stream of smaller, automated transactions triggered by specific events, behaviors, or needs. “We all want to pay our Netflix subscriptions,” said Holland. “We all want Alexa to go out and buy groceries when we say, ‘Hey Alexa, I'm running low on mangos.’ Programmatic payments is just the background technology that's driving a more transactional world.” Digital platforms have also normalized recurring and event-driven payments. Consumers are more comfortable authorizing transactions that occur automatically under specific conditions—whether that means renewing a subscription, purchasing additional credits for an AI platform after reaching a usage threshold, or completing a payment triggered by a predefined event. These experiences have changed consumer expectations around when and how payments can happen, making automated transactions feel like a natural part of everyday digital interactions. “You have that ability to trigger searches and purchases when that TV you've been waiting forever to buy hits that right price point,” said Ostrowski. “It's similar to the concept within the stock market where you're waiting for stocks take a certain price and then it executes. That's very much similar what you're doing to these programmatic payments in a 24/7/365 economy.” Moving at Machine Speed Especially for larger organizations, payments are no longer just financial events. They are increasingly embedded directly into digital platforms and operational systems. When programmatic payments are triggered by events such as a completed transaction or a supply chain milestone, companies can maintain control while automating workflows and allowing money to move at machine speed. These changes are happening at the consumer level as well. For example, parking apps have become a common frustration for drivers visiting new locations. Many parking lots now require downloading a separate app before a payment can be made. “I used to have to type my credit card information into each and every single one of these parking apps depending on where I was parking,” said Holland. “I went to the coast and this new parking app said, ‘Do you want to log in with Google?’ Yes. ‘Do you want to authorize a payment through Google Pay?’ Yes, I do.” “Four hours later, it prompted me: ‘Hey, you're running low on parking time. Do you want to add some more?’ Yes, done. That's a really tangible advantage, where I can just delegate it through Google Pay or Apple Pay,” he said. Fighting Financial Crime & Fraud Because these payments are completed so quickly—and because many involve relatively small dollar amounts—existing fraud detection and security systems must evolve to identify and mitigate emerging risks. “Your systems really have to be fine-tuned to detect those risks as they are happening,” said Ostrowski. “You can't rely on the analysts coming in at 8:00 AM. You have to have the right technology in place, the right monitoring place 24 hours a day, seven days a week to make sure that you are properly evaluating those payments as they flow through.” Strong guardrails will be essential as these payments evolve. In the traditional payments environment, a consumer whose card information was compromised could typically cancel the card and resolve the issue. Programmatic payments introduce a more complex challenge because transactions may be authorized through automated systems, predefined rules, or software agents acting on a user’s behalf. “You've got an infrastructure where we're enabling 40 or 50 different vendors to connect and automate things out of your account,” said Holland. “Do we want to use that large hammer to crack a very small nut that one of those 50 vendors is nefariously overcharging you? We're probably going to be in a situation where there's a bit of a human learning curve to go through.” The behavior of AI models differs from the human behavior that fraud detection systems have traditionally been designed to monitor. Those systems will need to learn what normal activity looks like in a world increasingly driven by machine-initiated transactions. “You have to figure out what the agents are going to do,” said Wester. “The agents aren't necessarily going to behave in ways that we think are sort of logical or the right way. They're going to follow patterns that are recognized and all sorts of data and decisions.” The results of these efforts also need to be auditable. Regulators must be confident that automated decisions are being made in appropriate, transparent, and accountable ways. What are the implications when AI doesn’t behave as intended? “I've run out of toilet tissue twice in the last three weeks,” said Holland. “When I ask the AI agent to order me some new toilet roll from Amazon, it's ordered me 500 rolls because it tries to be smart. It taken it quite literally that I run out too quick.” Key Takeaways Since programmatic payments occur in real time, the tools that support them must operate in real time as well. Whether it’s fraud screening or the onboarding of a newly introduced third-party agent, these capabilities must function at the same speed and scale as the business processes they support. It’s also vital to understand the underlying data involved and ensure it’s accurate, reliable, and aligned with the organization’s objectives. “When you take a look at some of the studies that have been done about major corporate AI roll outs, a lot of the time, it's not that the AI was bad, or that the ultimate business aim was bad,” said Holland. “It's the data that went into it wasn't sufficient to give them the outcome they needed.” Finally, there is a human element to consider. Programmatic payment systems will not operate at their full potential without people who can oversee their performance, provide guidance, and step in when human judgement is required. “If you're finding the desired success, you can bring in the people to be able to support it, so you're not trying to play catch up or having a number of regulatory findings as your examiners come in for the first for the first time,” Ostrowski said.   Holland added: “You want to avoid the AI equivalent of throwing a spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks.”
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  When Payment Choice Becomes the Expectation 30.07.2026 21мин

  No one likes waiting for a check to arrive in the mail. Today’s consumers are accustomed to instant, digital experiences, and those expectations extend to payments. Whether they’re receiving a refund, reimbursement, or settlement, recipients expect fast, secure and flexible options. That shift is prompting organizations to rethink how they disburse funds, with prepaid cards emerging as a practical option for many use cases. By giving payees more direct ways to receive their money, organizations can reduce reliance on paper checks while improving access to funds for recipients. In a PaymentsJournal Podcast, U.S. Bank’s Ashley Downey, Treasury and Payment Solutions Senior Product Manager and Kristin Ridgway, Prepaid Payment Solutions Consultant, as well as Jordan Hirschfield, Director of Prepaid at Javelin Strategy & Research, discussed how modern payment hubs can help organizations reduce costs, improve security, and provide recipients with greater choice. By moving payments away from paper checks and toward prepaid cards, payors can simplify disbursements while improving the payment experience. Moving Away from Checks Despite the continued shift toward digital payments, many companies still reflexively turn to paper checks for disbursements. Paper checks remain an expensive and inefficient payment method. The cost per check can exceed $4, with some estimates reaching as high as $20. “Think about all that goes into printing checks—the postage, labor, manual approvals, stuffing envelopes, tracking lost mail,” said Ridgway. “Probably the most time-consuming and expensive is check fraud. As they move those payments to prepaid cards or other pay methods, all those issues are eliminated, especially the fraud.” Checks have become less convenient for payees as well. Consumers expect speed and convenience in nearly every aspect of their lives, making a trip to the mailbox and a stop at a check-cashing location feel outdated—especially when additional fees may be involved. Fortunately, organizations have a growing range of alternatives to paper checks, including prepaid cards, payroll cards, digital payments, and even peer-to-peer services like Zelle. “All of these things are part of the arsenal every recipient uses, and they need to get those funds where they need it and as quickly as they can,” said Downey. “Having that access is key to consumers’ ability to take hold of their own personal finances.” The Benefits of Prepaid For recipients who may not have a traditional bank account—or simply want immediate access to their funds—prepaid cards can offer a practical alternative to paper checks. “Why do people use prepaid cards for themselves?” said Hirschfield. “People feel like it's a safer option versus checks or cash. But it also turns immediately into the ability to access the money. It's much easier to use a card on an open loop rail, especially when you're under banked, when you have poor credit and don't qualify for a credit card.” There’s also compliance consideration. Uncashed checks must be tracked, reported, and remitted to the state, creating additional administrative burden and audit exposure. “When a payment is made to a prepaid card, we handle statement responsibility according to the state where the recipient resides,” said Ridgway. “We take that burden away from our clients when the payment is made to a prepaid card.” A Focus on Flexibility In most cases, payee preferences and payment use cases help determine the optimal payment method. What U.S. Bank has found works well for its clients is conducting an assessment of who they're paying and why they're making those payments. There may be situations where funds are urgently needed, such as providing food or services to victims of a natural disaster. Or a business might have a vendor on-site who needs payment in hand before leaving. The ways those individuals prefer to receive payment could be very different—and critical to their missions. Increasingly, customers are demanding not just faster payment methods but also more payment options. The challenge for many organizations is that they may not be prepared for that level of complexity. One emerging solution is a single disbursement platform connected to multiple services and tools, such as U.S. Bank’s Payee Choice. A decision engine can process each payment and determine the ideal outcome for both the payor and the recipient. “We simplify the process so the end recipient doesn't have to fully know or understand all the options available to them,” said Downey. “We use what information we receive from the client to best identify what solutions or payment methods best fit that recipient. “A good example of that is Zelle,” she said. “We can identify if a person is already enrolled in the Zelle network using the aliases provided by the client. And we can suppress showing that option to individuals who aren't already enrolled. If they are enrolled in Zelle, click this button, you'll get the payment in minutes. That's just a better experience.” Protection from Fraud As organizations evaluate their payment mix, security has become just as important as efficiency and consumer preference. Fraud continues to be a major concern in the payments space, with paper checks remaining a primary target for criminals. Providing alternative payment options can help reduce that exposure while giving recipients greater choice. “Any type of electronic and card payment gives a much deeper programmatic fraud management solution,” said Hirschfield. “There are many more steps needed to protect these programs.” Having multiple layers of fraud prevention built into the process minimizes the need for organizations to collect and store sensitive data, thereby reducing their exposure and risk. Payee Choice continuously monitors for fraudulent activity. “We're validating that person is the rightful owner of the account that's being linked for payment for ACH or an instant payment, for example,” said Downey. “For Zelle, we can do a name match as well. And we're making sure we're preventing any misguided payments.” Final Thoughts Paper checks are becoming increasingly disconnected from how recipients actually want to be paid today—particularly among younger consumers who have never used them.   “We live in this digitally-native society—especially younger generations,” said Hirschfield. “Having these options to have any kind of digital payment or electronic payment is critical.” Offering payment choice helps close that gap, reducing friction for recipients and operational complexity for organizations.   “It’s been really powerful to have our customers move away from issuing checks and manual processes to be freed up to work on other things at their business,” said Downey. “Helping those clients move from just thinking about a payment solution and being able to drive overall improvement for them has been really successful.”
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  Why Crypto Will Be the New Standard for Global Payouts 29.07.2026 18мин

  Many companies expect gig workers to deliver fast, reliable work—but the way they’re paid often tells a very different story. Behind the scenes, payouts can lag days or even weeks, get chipped away by fees, and disappear into layers of currency conversion and compliance hurdles that most contractors never see coming. This gap between real-time work and delayed compensation becomes even more pronounced in cross-border payments, where long-standing friction points persist: settlement delays, hidden costs, currency conversion, regional regulations, and limited visibility into where money actually is at any given moment. In a recent PaymentsJournal podcast, Kate Lifshits, CEO of NOWPayments, and James Wester, Director of Cryptocurrency at Javelin Strategy & Research, discussed the many ways in which leveraging digital assets for payouts can create a more effective solution. Not only can crypto payouts address operational challenges, but implementing efficient global payout systems can also be a key differentiator when it comes to attracting and retaining vital talent in a competitive market. The Operational Pain Points The issues with cross-border payments only intensify as organizations scale high-volume international payouts. Although cost is often the most visible concern, many of these expenses are not immediately obvious. “It's not the payout itself that costs a lot, it's the operational overhead that comes with this payout,” Lifshits said. “There are things like reconciliation, operational failures, and support tickets that come with failed payouts, and all kinds of manual operations are needed. If we're talking about 100 payouts, it's one fee. If we're talking about 100,000 payouts, it's another fee because at scale we're talking about additional infrastructure.” Understanding fee structures is just one aspect of the broader operational complexity facing finance teams at global organizations. These teams must manage multiple banks and fiat currencies while continuously staying current on regional regulatory, tax, and compliance requirements. While this is challenging for organizations, payout inefficiencies can be even more detrimental for contractors. One of the biggest obstacles for small businesses—and especially freelancers, creators, and gig workers—is cash flow. Budgets are often stretched thin after covering supplies or subcontractors, and financial pressure can rapidly escalate when payouts are delayed, inaccurate, or subsumed by fees. Unfortunately, all of these issues are common in the current payment system. “The system itself was built by banks for banks, for their convenience and not for either end of the transaction,” Wester said. “It's not built for the sender. Tthe sender has to figure out the complexity, they have to figure out where it's going, and they have to figure out the cost. And the recipient, it's definitely not designed for them because they have to wait. They are the ones where often the fees are built into whatever it is that they received.” Translating Speed into Trust These payment challenges don’t align with current customer expectations. When users can send peer-to-peer payments almost instantly with full visibility in a seamless digital experience, traditional cross-border payment systems can feel archaic. “They want settlement and they're even beginning to understand the differences between when a payment is made and when a payment settles,” Wester said. “They are expecting that settlement to be immediate. Nobody wants to wait for a payment to clear anymore, you don't want to hear that phrase. You just expect a payment to happen and the money to move and for it to be available in an account right away.” For their part, many organizations want similar clarity on the other side of the transaction, since understanding cash flow is essential to operations. However, the complexity of cross-border payments—combined with managing multiple platforms, freelancers, and contractors—makes it difficult to track cash flow accurately. This creates a difficult environment, because organizations that rely on gig workers and contractors at scale understand that speedy, reliable payouts are the lifeblood of their business model. “In this case, speed translates into trust and reputation and that in its turn translates into bigger volumes, because speed means that the users will trust this provider or this business—whichever is sending the payouts—and that in its turn will bring in more usage,” Lifshits said. “It all goes together.” Improving the Economics of Global Payouts As merchants increasingly recognize the importance of efficient payouts, many also acknowledge that current cross-border payment systems fall short of expectations. Digital assets can provide near real-time payment and greater transparency, while often reducing currency conversion friction and regulatory overhead. Perhaps most importantly, crypto payments can help reduce the spiraling costs of global payouts. “It's different with crypto payment gateways because they can help scale without ballooning the fees. The fees stay the same even with a big scaling,” Lifshits said. “All the pain points could be dealt with in this traditional infrastructure, but it will cost very, very much. But if it's a crypto payout infrastructure, the fees will be what they are supposed to be in a world that makes sense.” At the center of this infrastructure is the crypto gateway, which bridges payments processors and merchants. While early crypto gateways were little more than a “Pay with Crypto” button at checkout, modern systems have evolved into sophisticated payment orchestration platforms that optimize routing while maintaining compliance. Crypto gateways have become essential for managing the many components of the digital asset ecosystem, including cryptocurrencies, wallets, integrations, and infrastructure layers. This is transformative for organizations that are drawn to the cost and efficiency benefits of digital assets but hesitant about operational complexity. These gateways also address one of the most significant barriers to adoption: volatility. Crypto gateways allow merchants to choose how actively they manage digital assets, from fully automated conversion to more hands-on control. All these advantages make crypto payouts as user-friendly as other payment tools in a merchant’s stack. “Crypto is not something now that a business needs to look at and think that is different from the standard way of doing things,” Wester said. “It has become a standard for business-to-business payments, and it is not something that is strange or foreign or weird or exotic. It's a standard tool for making payments and has become so very quickly.” Changing Business Economics Crypto has been adopted rapidly in part because it often offers a more efficient alternative to many traditional payment methods. However, the benefits of using digital assets for payouts extend beyond cost reduction. “If you think about gig economy marketplaces or about any time there has to be a payout, when you think about making that payment better, faster, and cheaper, it becomes something that those businesses can now use as a competitive advantage,” Wester said. While crypto gateways are powerful tools, they were not entirely fee-free—until now. NOWPayments recently introduced zero-fee payouts with near-instant processing for wallets within its ecosystem. This solution is designed for high-volume global operations and delivers meaningful improvements in efficiency and scalability. Beyond reducing costs, NOWPayments introduces a new value proposition for partners: the ability to generate additional revenue when their users engage with ChangeNOW PRO. This makes NOWPayments the first crypto payment gateway to enable partners not only to accept payments, but also to participate in and benefit from the broader ecosystem. Along with settlement times of roughly a second, zero-fee payouts and new revenue opportunities present a compelling alternative—even compared to already low-cost crypto gateways. “The problem here is that every fee looks small until you scale it and multiply it by millions or billions of transactions,” Lifshits said. “The small businesses that are scaling to become big businesses, they will face issues even if the fee is $0.01.” “That is why our zero-fee instant payouts are meant to change business economics, because they're free, they are available to everyone, and they're instant. And that means lower operational costs and a far better user experience,” she said. “It's not even about reducing costs or saving money; it's about enabling new business models and new revenue streams.”
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  What Happens When a Credit Union Outgrows Its Accounting System 28.07.2026 16мин

  As financial institutions merge and evolve, the pressure on back-office operations grows just as quickly as it does on member-facing services. Accounting teams that once relied on manual processes and patchwork systems are now expected to deliver greater accuracy, faster reporting, and the flexibility to support future growth. As a result, many banks and credit unions are reevaluating whether their current accounting platforms can keep pace—and looking for partners that can support both today’s demands and tomorrow’s challenges. In a PaymentsJournal Podcast, Kellie Rychwalski, Chief Financial Officer at Del-One Federal Credit Union, Kandra Person, Senior Solution Consultant at Fiserv, and James Wester, Co-Head of Payments at Javelin Research and Strategy, discussed the accounting solutions available to financial teams today. Newer platforms have made significant advances compared to the way things were handled in the past. “I was just looking for efficiencies,” said Rychwalski. “Simply being able to attach a PDF of an invoice to an accounts payable or fixed asset transaction instead of filing is a huge time saver.”   Seeking a Platform with Greater Functionality When Rychwalski joined Del One in 2012 as the Director of Accounting, she found an integrated general ledger (GL) system that lacked much of the functionality the credit union needed. “We were looking for something that was core agnostic,” said Rychwalski. “We knew that we would be changing data processors or core systems at some point, and didn't want to have to continuously move the GL.” Del-One eventually selected Fiserv’s financial accounting and finance operations platform, Prologue, in a hosted environment. The credit union would receive full support from Fiserv, and if they changed core systems in the future, they wouldn't need to replace the entire GL again. When the credit union merged with Louviers Federal Credit Union and migrated its GL into Prologue, the transition was easy for the team to absorb. From day one, they were able to produce consolidated financials without waiting for the operational merge date. “We could still balance to the different core processors of their different outside vendors, but we could bring our financial statements together as one consolidated financial statement,” Rychwalski said. “For the person who spent two months manually combining them, that was a really big deal.” Streamlining Approvals The sheer volume of AP that flows through a thriving credit union can be daunting. Prologue helps alleviate the burden by assigning approval limits, connecting the appropriate invoices to each transaction, and routing everything through the approval workflow automatically. It eliminates the need for staff to chase down approvals manually. “The system knows that anything over $100,000 has to go to my supervisor, so it'll come and get my approval and then it'll send it over to my supervisor,” Rychwalski said. “Nobody is running around trying to make sure they got all the signatures, and the actual transaction has the invoice and approval history attached to it.” Prologue allows Del-One to establish policy limits that determine who can approve transactions and at what amounts. If an amount requires a second approval, the workflow automatically routes it to the appropriate person. Instead of tracking down signatures on paper invoices, approvals are connected digitally from the start. “Many of the prior processes were ad hoc processes that solved the problem when they were first developed, then they just became standard operating procedures,” said Wester. “Having a system that can automate that and make people more efficient gives you more time to do other things that are more important to the business.” Moving Beyond a Patchwork System Many legacy systems exist only in the minds of long-time employees. Rychwalski explained that previous budgets were prepared through an elaborate network of spreadsheets—a process that was not only unsustainable, but also difficult to transfer to others. “I needed something that would calculate interest income and expense that would allow me to project based on rates,” Rychwalski said. “And that's what Vantage brought to us. I'm able to project that if the rates go up, this is the way it's going to look. I can build formulas.” The previous spreadsheet process consumed a tremendous amount of time, both in maintaining the files and in training others. It also created accuracy issues, since manual processes inevitably introduce human error. “The accuracy also increases because Vantage brings in the account level detail, the instrument level detail from those cores,” Person said. “With it being core agnostic, it's bringing in all that detail to calculate all the cash flows for those specific investments, loans, shares, and deposits.” Ready for the Future Organizations investing time and money into these products must understand that proper mapping is critical. Teams need to understand how the GL is structured, what accounts are grouped together, and how to maintain consistency while still leaving room for future changes and growth. “You're going to create products that you haven't thought about yet,” said Rychwalski. “You have to be able to understand how to update new products, create new products, and change the ones that you have.”
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  The Missing Piece in Banks’ Identity Protection Strategy 24.07.2026 21мин

  Every bank wants to earn its customers’ trust. Today, protecting customers’ identities is just as important to earning that trust as safeguarding their money. Too many financial institutions, however, still treat identity protection as an afterthought. They fail to recognize that identity protection is not only a cybersecurity imperative but also a powerful driver of customer loyalty and engagement. In a PaymentsJournal Podcast, Javelin Strategy & Research’s Tracy Goldberg, Director of Cybersecurity, and Dylan Lerner, Senior Analyst of Digital Banking, discussed the opportunity for banks and credit unions to offering identity protection services to customers and members. While these services deliver clear security benefits, financial institutions should also consider the risks of leaving customers vulnerable to identity-based attacks. As the saying goes, trust arrives on foot but leaves on horseback. Seeking Security Identity theft remains a widespread problem. Consumers are increasingly looking to trusted partners to help them navigate identity theft risk, creating an opportunity for banks and credit unions to partner with identity theft protection services (IDPS) providers. “There's so many different ways to look at this, but at the end, it comes down to the fact that you should do anything you can to tell your customers, ‘Hey, security is important to us too,’” said Lerner. “Then all those ancillary benefits come into play.” Banks and credit unions are uniquely positioned to help consumers recover from identity theft. Not only do they safeguard much of a customer’s or member’s financial assets, but banks and credit unions also carry a reputation for stability and trustworthiness. “Cybersecurity generally is never thought of as a customer service or loyalty topic,” said Goldberg. “But consumers are telling us that when it comes to a cybersecurity incident—whether it’s a socially engineered attack like a scam or even malware that may have infected their device—they more often than not want to turn to a trusted partner like a financial institution.” Not every institution has the resources to build a comprehensive cybersecurity program that includes identity theft resources in-house. As a result, many turning to white-label IDPS solutions that provide identity protection under the financial institution’s brand. “I want the IDPS to be with my name and my branding, to not only build credibility but loyalty,” Lerner said. “There is something to be said about having a strong brand name associated with it.” At the same time, there are advantages to partnering with a third-party provider that brings strong brand recognition and established expertise. The key is selecting a solution that best aligns with the financial institution’s overall strategy and customer experience goals. Making It Accessible An effective IDPS strategy should enhance, not complicate, the customer/member relationship. Prioritizing sophisticated technology at the expense of accessibility can ultimately undermine adoption and engagement. “The most important thing in banking relationships is ease of use,” said Lerner. “Security is always second to being able to use something.” There is risk in relying too heavily on generic educational messaging. When consumers are inundated with scam alerts and warnings, they often start to tune them out. Financial institutions should leverage their own data to personalize communications and tailor recommendations to individual needs. Just as importantly, every alert should include clear, actionable guidance on what customers can do next. “So often when we look at the top 20 financial institutions, one of the missing key elements in education is making it actionable,” said Lerner. “That's what a lot of these identity protection services provide. Rather than an identity theft kit that says, ‘Contact each of the three bureaus,’ provide a trusted provider that can help with the next step. That actionability is a big upgrade over education.” Ultimately, identity protection works best as a partnership between the customer/member and the financial institution. That collaborative approach strengthens trust and builds longer-lasting relationships. “If consumers find that identity theft protection adds value, you might find that your customers either add more products or stay with your financial institution longer,” said Goldberg. “That ancillary benefit is now available to them beyond just offering basic banking products and services that are pretty commoditized in today's market.” Customize the Offering Financial institutions can bolster those relationships by ensuring that identity protection and other security offerings are customized. For instance, seniors may benefit from features designed for caregivers or family financial management. Other consumers with young children may have more interest in identity monitoring that includes the entire family. Different consumer segments face different risks, giving financial institutions an opportunity to deliver more relevant, personalized security solutions. “This just goes to show me that the financial institution has the consumer’s best interest at heart,” Goldberg said. “They are helping me to shore up my cybersecurity, not only within my bank account, but also in my personal life.” Financial institutions don't have to be the experts in every aspect of identity protection. A well-chosen IDPS partner understands where consumers are most vulnerable and can identify when consumers need additional safeguards, enhanced monitoring, or offering hands-on support during identity recovery. “The more secure your customers and members are, from a cybersecurity standpoint, in their personal lives, the more secure their accounts are going to be,” said Goldberg. “And the less risk you're going to see as a financial institution.”
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  The Case for Not Building Your Own Remittance Stack 22.07.2026 20мин

  Entrepreneurs bring tremendous enthusiasm and energy to building their businesses, but they’re often less excited about the everyday—yet essential—tasks like building the infrastructure needed to accept and send payments. When they do tackle those tasks, they usually discover they’re far more complicated than expected. That’s why more startups are turning to outside partners to help them build remittance platforms. In a PaymentsJournal Podcast, Avinash Chidambaram, Founder and CEO of Cybrid and James Wester, Co-Head of Payments at Javelin Strategy & Research, discussed how these partners can help growing businesses with everything from compliance to building payment applications. Complications Abound There’s much more to a remittance platform than simply collecting payments. Building one typically requires significant and expensive developer resources, particularly in early-stage startups and expanding fintechs without existing systems. Challenges include onboarding, Know Your Customer (KYC) requirements, compliance, and other features that can affect or delay a launch. Further, these requirements vary depending on the business, so it’s difficult to copy a playbook across an industry. Sending stablecoins across borders, for instance, presents fraud and KYC challenges that are very different from those facing a local hardware store or even a domestic-only bill pay platform. The challenges of sending and receiving payments across borders are already complex, and they are made worse by the fact that companies must adhere to the unique compliance requirements in every jurisdiction involved.  A startup that has found customers halfway around the world has enough on its plate without also navigating the complexities of remittance infrastructure in every market where it operates. “What surprises people when they start looking at remittances or cross-border [transfers] is that all the complexities that you have in payments in one market are now multiplied for every market that you're trying to go into,” said Chidambaram. “You have to think about all of those rules, all of those regulations, all of the requirements, all the compliance things across every different corridor.” Rather than outsourcing to a service provider, which can get expensive, a key unlock is to work with technology vendors that handle the compliance posture on your behalf. Not only can experienced partners take the burden off a business’ shoulders, but they can also manage these issues more efficiently and cost-effectively. “Go do the stuff that you do well, go build your business,” said Wester. “You don't need to be paying attention to the regulatory happenings in a particular jurisdiction that you may be dealing in or sending monies to. Let somebody else do that because that's the part where it's changing.” Solving the Same Problems Despite operating in different markets, remittance and B2B companies face similar challenges. For instance, both require significant data collection on users, called KYC for individuals or KYB for businesses. This data is necessary for compliance reasons, but handling sensitive personal information is also a risk to individual businesses. Again, this is where a technology vendor can help; pre-built APIs make this data collection easier and more secure, with fewer developer resources required. Given the rapid pace of change in payments, organizations must continually adapt to new requirements. Speed, in particular, has become ever more important in B2B payments as suppliers have come to expect real-time transactions whenever possible. And in today’s global economy, payments now move through a 24/7 cycle. Consider a company purchasing goods from China. It must manage everything from payment timing to constantly fluctuating foreign exchange rates. Rather than manage all of that internally, many organizations find it easier to rely on partners that have already solved these challenges. “We realized we're already helping other customers make payments to China,” said Chidambaram. “So why wouldn't we take that information and bundle it all together? The network effect isn't just having more endpoints. It's also experiencing all those pain points, learning from everybody else's experience, because I think generally that's going to be good for all of us. The rising tide will lift all boats.” Drawbacks of Infrastructure Vendors Of course, not every outside partner offers the same level of support. Many businesses turn to infrastructure vendors to power money movement. The challenge is that these providers typically focus on the underlying technology, leaving implementation and the front-end user experience to the client. “It's pretty straightforward to get the basics in place,” said Chidambaram. “But it doesn't necessarily directly fit the setup for a particular jurisdiction, and it doesn't necessarily meet the strict compliance requirements and standards in the jurisdictions that we operate in.” Some organizations have relied on open-source repositories or the growing array of AI tools. While both can provide the basic building blocks, they often fall short as businesses scale and their requirements become more sophisticated.  Another issue is fraud and risk considerations, which can require reserve funding. "If there's money lost [due to fraud], we're just going to take it from [reserve funds],” said Chidambaram. “It's an actual direct cost to those entrepreneurs and to those companies because they don't have anyone helping them manage any of that risk.” Final Takeaways The core message for any organization developing an international remittance or B2B payments platform is to find a partner that approaches the challenge holistically, freeing the business to focus on growth. The right partner can manage capabilities that may not initially seem like competitive differentiators, such as liquidity management and 24/7/365 money movement. The most optimal B2B payment platforms deliver a stronger, more seamless payment experience for everyone who uses their applications. Given the size and complexity of many B2B payments, every aspect of the transaction has become increasingly important. Similarly, the best remittance platforms automate the necessary things that don’t provide competitive differentiation, like KYC collection, but prioritize their developer time on building market-leading user experiences. “The devil is in the details,” said Wester. “The messy stuff may be that 10% that you didn't know you needed to pay attention to. You got 90% of the way there, but it was the 10% that you missed that will get you fined or will get you shut down or will lose a partner.” Chidambaram added: “We've made it easy for you to go beyond the core infrastructure of minting a stablecoin and sending it to a wallet. We are empowering entrepreneurs so that they don't have to worry about the payment side of it anymore. My advice is if you are an entrepreneur or a startup and your business is do not do payments, go do the thing that you do.”
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  When Faster Isn’t Better: The New Rules of Business Payments 21.07.2026 15мин

  Business customers today have more ways to move money than at any point in recent memory. The arrival of near-instant payment networks like FedNow and RTP has expanded the menu of options, giving companies new ways to balance speed, cost, and security when making payments. In a PaymentsJournal Podcast, Darren Beyer, Chief Product Officer and Co-Founder of Qolo, and Hugh Thomas, Lead Analyst of Commercial and Enterprise Payments at Javelin Strategy & Research, discussed how the business payments landscape has evolved. While faster payments have captured much of the industry’s attention, they noted that speed is only one consideration. In many cases, choosing the right payment method has become a more nuanced decision. A Panoply of Options According to Javelin's 2026 Commercial Payments Factbook, one of the most notable developments in business payments is that virtually every alternative to paper checks is growing at the same time—a dynamic the industry hasn’t seen before. The payment method companies choose depends on the circumstances surrounding the transaction. When funds need to move immediately and both parties want real-time visibility into the transfer, businesses often gravitate toward RTP. In newer supplier relationships, where trust may still be developing, virtual cards are frequently the preferred option, particularly when buyers and suppliers are looking for working capital or cash management benefits. ACH remains a mainstay for established business relationships. Companies that have worked together for years often rely on ACH because the process is familiar, automated, and dependable. Whether using standard ACH or Same Day ACH, many businesses continue to view it as a simple and efficient way to move funds. The banking ecosystem has also split across newer instant payment networks. While many large financial institutions helped build and adopt The Clearing House’s RTP network, smaller banks have generally shown greater interest in the Federal Reserve’s FedNow service. “The problem is that while both of those are real time networks, they don't talk to each other,” said Beyer. “If you're a bank that does FedNow, you can't accept an RTP for one of your banking clients. The best way that gets solved is by both of those reaching a critical mass of acceptance on the banking side. Until that problem gets solved, those are going to continue to be throttled.” Beyond Speed The conversation around faster payments has been building for more than a decade. Since the Federal Reserve first outlined its vision for modernizing payments, financial institutions and technology providers have invested heavily to expand available options. Now that those systems are reaching greater maturity, the focus is shifting. The challenge is no longer about enabling faster payments, it’s helping businesses understand when speed matters—and when it doesn’t. For many, delaying a payment can be advantageous. A company issuing large volumes of payments may prefer to preserve cash for a few extra days. In other situations, speed can be critical, such as when paying a six-figure supplier invoice and avoiding costly late fees. “If you were to ask 100 CFOs of varying size companies about RTP or FedNow, they might say, that's kind of like a real-time ACH or something, isn't it?” said Beyer. “That's their level of understanding of what it is. Once you understand what something is, you can think about how are you going to use these things.” “Your CFO may realize, OK, I know what RTP is, now I can hang on to my funds till the absolute last moment and then push them out in my contractual obligation to pay a payee. All that becomes more material to the CFO. That cascades down through the organization in working with providers to better understand the mandates the CFOs push in terms of hitting those cash conversion cycle goals.” By and large, it’s less about choosing a single payment rail and more about applying rules-based decision-making. Today, more businesses have the ability to route payments based on factors such as timing, cost, and the nature of the relationship between counterparties. “Bank of America recently had a webinar about their use of RTP for home closing costs,” said Thomas. “I don't know that 10 years ago you would have seen a bank talking about this. But the folks involved in the ecosystem understand there's a need for broader education in terms of how all these various different instruments get used.” Matching the Tool to the Task Each payment method offers its own balance of convenience, control, and risk. Checks, despite their declining share of payments, still provide a level of flexibility. They may take longer to arrive, but senders can stop payment if something goes wrong. Electronic payment methods come with their own safeguards. Card-based payments, including virtual cards, offer dispute and chargeback protections. ACH transactions also provide mechanisms for addressing unauthorized activity. The trade-off becomes more pronounced with real-time payments. The same speed that makes these networks attractive can also create challenges when fraud occurs. Once funds have been sent and received, recovering them can be far more difficult. That reality reinforces a central point, according to both Beyer and Thomas. No single payment method is right for every situation. Each fills a distinct role, and the optimal choice depends on the context and the payer’s goals. “All the hard technical stuff is done,” Beyer said. “We've built all the piping, but now we need to help customers understand how best to orchestrate this. Banks have to catch up, they're not going to go spend a bunch of money if they can't monetize it.” “The rest of the world has to now do the hard part of coming up with the use cases, rules-based routing, all of those different things. It's the old adage that it takes 90% of the work to do the final 10%. That's where we're sitting right now with RTP and FedNow. We collectively have to get that last 10% across the line.”
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  For Gen Z, Banking Loyalty Begins with Payments 20.07.2026

  Banking relationships often start earlier than most people realize—and they tend to last longer than expected. Roughly half of young consumers will stick with their bank into adulthood, and many never switch. This puts banks’ focus squarely on Gen Z, where the youngest members of the cohort are in their early teenage years and the oldest are already facing significant financial decisions. Still, many financial institutions have struggled to connect with this digital-first demographic. In a recent PaymentsJournal podcast, Fiserv’s Tina Shirley, VP of Product Management and Josh Mesaros, Inside Sales Executive, as well as Ben Danner, Senior Debit Analyst at Javelin Strategy & Research, discussed payments experiences across generational lines and the areas where banks fall short. What they uncovered was that when financial institutions improve payment experiences to better engage Gen Z, they also positively impact consumers across the board. The Gamut of Mobile Banking Experiences For most consumers, the best mobile experience isn’t the flashiest one—it’s the one that works seamlessly every time. While many banks focus on creating sleek new user interfaces, customers’ highest expectation for online and mobile banking apps is simply that they work—especially for everyday interactions like viewing checking account balances and reviewing credit card transactions. Over the years, many of these features have become taken for granted, but they represent a significant improvement over are far superior to the alternative. “I think back to when online bill pay was new for me, it was kind of a life-changing offering,” Shirley said. “Rather than writing a check and having to go get stamps and remember to mail a check, moving to online bill pay changed my routine from being annoying and inconvenient to just a couple of clicks to pay my bill.” Although many mobile banking activities have become ingrained behaviors, new technologies have driven significant shifts in other areas. This is especially true for Gen Z and millennial consumers. “The biggest one for me would be Zelle®,” Mesanos said. “I live with a bunch of buddies and every month I have my payment set and scheduled where on the first of the month I pay my roommate, who then pays all of our rent to our landlord at once. It is also very convenient when going out to dinner and for my yearly dues to my hockey team. Zelle®'s just a must have for me.” The Fragmentation of Financial Apps Although Zelle® is a powerful tool, there is no monopoly in fintech—a reality that underscores one of the biggest challenges facing banks and credit unions as they compete for relevance among Gen Z. The market is now crowded with digitally native fintechs and neobanks, many of which have made early inroads with users. While many of the companies were created to addresses specific banking niches, several fintechs have since expanded their offerings to rival traditional banks. Companies like Venmo and Cash App can accept deposits, facilitate investments, and issue debit cards. However, while these services may be bank-like, they are not equivalent to full-service banking offerings. “Some of these third-party payment platforms—for example, Venmo—are not insured,” Mesanos said. “I once had a buddy in college that had a bunch of money sitting in his Venmo account because he didn't want his parents to access that and see how much he had. But that not being insured scares me because you never know what's going to happen.” Another issue with fintechs is that many operate as walled gardens, where users must join a platform to participate in its ecosystem. To accommodate these varied scenarios, customers often download multiple apps. This can quickly lead to financial fragmentation, where users hold balances across several platforms with no holistic way to manage them. “You might have a Gen Z customer bouncing around between all these different fintech apps and multiple banking apps, to the point where they have 10 to 15 apps on their phone that are just for banking and payments,” Danner said. “One single app that can do all of those different things would be huge because there is app fatigue in a way,” he said. Unifying the Banking Experience As consumers increasingly juggle multiple financial apps, banks have an opportunity to differentiate themselves by becoming the central hub for user’s financial lives. Unfortunately, many banks and credit unions are still behind the curve on the fundamentals. “I've banked with several small banks and credit unions that didn't have a whole lot of features built into their mobile experience,” Danner said. “When we talk about these things that are table stakes at the large issuer—like budget tools, spend management controls, instant everything—some of the smaller banks and credit unions I've been with don't have any of those tools in their app.” This lack of scope and functionality further contributes to fragmentation, as users often must rely on multiple apps to accomplish a single objective. Integrating these experiences is a critical first step, but an attractive mobile banking solution goes far beyond functionality alone. Perhaps more than any other generation, Gen Z consumers are accustomed to optionality. Instead of cable or satellite, they expect to curate their own mix of streaming services from a collection of options. However, this abundance of choice can also be overwhelming. As a result, many younger adults place a premium on guidance, especially when it comes to major life decisions. Unfortunately, too many banks still rely on one-size-fits-all messaging for a generation that expects tailored experiences. “I’m getting retirement notifications or notifications like, ‘Here is a $400 promo to open a small business account,’” Mesanos said. “It would be helpful if there was a ‘For You’ category where I could learn about mortgages or car loans, something that's more relevant to my generation.” Personalizing Offers Via AI Banks now have more tools than ever to deliver personalized guidance at scale—and Gen Z consumers increasingly expect that level of customization. Institutions have substantial access to consumer data through onboarding information, transaction history, and product interactions. They also have artificial intelligence and other customization tools at their disposal, which can generate personalized recommendations with minimal staff involvement. These tools can be deployed at critical moments, while the customer is actively engaged with the bank’s app. Unfortunately, many banks and credit unions have continued to operate as usual—and the limitations are becoming increasingly apparent. “Truth be told, I don't feel much pain, but I do feel like my bank is serving up the same experience that it did 10 years ago, or more,” Shirley said. “My journey has changed; my bank still has tools that are relevant, but maybe in a different way than they used to be. It's continuing to invest in the technology that enables the experience that customers or members expect.” The Winning Combination for Gen Z For younger consumers navigating fragmented financial lives, the institutions gaining traction are often the ones that can simplify the experience while still making it feel personal. This blend of personalization, education, and AI has resonated strongly with younger adults. A centralized banking experience can cut through the noise for a generation inundated with financial advice from social media and accustomed to managing money across multiple banks and fintech platforms. However, becoming a central hub doesn’t mean a financial institution must be the sole provider of services. In many cases, consumers place greater value on institutions that can provide a holistic view of their financial lives, regardless of where their accounts or balances reside. That broader experience must be paired with functionality, which is why Zelle® has become such an important component of financial institutions’ payments stacks. The service offers a near real-time, low cost, and secure way to send payments that feel familiar and intuitive to Gen Z customers. As Zelle® approaches its tenth anniversary next year, some corners of the market have suggested the payments solution could begin to show its age—but the opposite may be true. “In my opinion, it is the right network enabling instant payments,” Shirley said. “Here at Fiserv, we are bringing things forward like allowing recurring payments and scheduled one-time payments. The user sees their recent recipients so they can easily transact, and they aren’t having to dig into a long list to figure out who to pay.” “There are things that we’re able to do and we’ll keep moving forward with from a user experience perspective, I’m looking forward to seeing what the next 10 years will bring,” she said.
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  Tap-to-Pay Gives Small Merchants a Big Advantage 14.07.2026 11мин

  A decade ago, accepting card payments at a farmers market, food truck, or pop-up shop often meant investing in bulky hardware, worrying about battery life, and paying for ongoing technical support. Today, a small business owner can accept secure, contactless payments with nothing more than a smartphone. Tap-to-pay is doing more than speeding up checkout for consumers—it’s lowering the barriers to commerce for micro merchant, giving them access to affordable payment technology, customer insights, and enterprise-level security once reserved for much larger businesses. In a PaymentsJournal Podcast, Sara Craven, General Manager at Visa’s Authorize.net, and Don Apgar, Director of Merchant Payments at Javelin Strategy & Research, explored what micro merchants can gain from tap-to-pay. Despite the ease and convenience, these transactions are protected against fraud just as effectively as traditional card payments. Making It Easier on Customers Merchants used to be able to get away with accepting only certain payment methods. Today, consumers expect to pay however they want. They want to be able to tap their device—whether it's Apple Pay, Google Pay, or a credit or debit card—anytime, anywhere. Tap-to-pay allows even the smallest businesses to accept nearly every type of payment. More importantly, it helps bring more consumers through the door, which can translate into higher revenue. “I was at a lacrosse tournament with my 14-year-old,” said Craven. “They had these long lines for folks who just wanted to buy a taco and they were only accepting cash. I sat there thinking, if they had tap-to-pay, with the ability to quickly move consumers through their lines and not have to worry about the change or the dollar bills, it could have been game changing.” Apgar added: “My personal use case is leaving the Kroger the other day and the Girl Scouts had the cookie stand set up out front. I only had $20 in my pocket, so I could only buy four boxes. It was really a heartbreak. Had they had they accepted cards, I certainly would have bought many more than I needed.” Simple Yet Comprehensive There’s no need for merchants to purchase dongles or dedicated hardware to set up tap-to-pay. They simply download an app or sign up online, and they're ready to start accepting payments. From there, merchants can integrate payments into their broader customer experience. A farmers market vendor, for example, can not only accept payments but also record orders directly on their device, track customer information, and analyze purchase history. From an omnichannel perspective, this gives merchants a centralized view of their operations, including customer activity and overall business performance. “If we can't get to the farmers market one week, tap-to-pay still shows my order both from when I purchased in person and also when I purchased online,” said Craven. “It creates a really nice, connected ecosystem for merchants.” The early days of wireless payment terminals were marked by bulky hardware that resembled old cellular phones. These devices required reliable cell signals, and battery life was often a major limitation. For merchants operating in places without easy access to electricity—such as farmers markets—keeping terminals powered throughout the day was a challenge. It has also historically been difficult for acquirers and PSPs to efficiently serve micro merchants. Deploying and programing payment terminals is expensive, and ongoing tech support adds even more cost. Tap-to-pay removes much of that burden by eliminating the need for dedicated hardware altogether. “We've got tons of partners who leverage on Authorize.net,” said Craven. “They're reselling or offering our service to merchants as a streamlined approach to our products. They can also get their merchants onboarded without having to send them devices. It’s super easy for PSPs to scale in this space without the overhead of having to manage hardware deployment and support.” State-of-the-Art Fraud Controls Despite its simplicity, tap-to-pay offers the same level of security and reliability as more complex payment systems. “I joke that my mom is very nervous about using tap-to-pay because she's worried that the minute she touches her phone or her credit card to someone else's phone, they're able to steal her credentials,” said Craven. “But everything is fully encrypted. You don't see full credit card data. It has a token attached to it so that you're able to purchase again without having to enter or show your clear card data. They don't even have PIN numbers that the merchants have accessible.” Behind the scenes, advanced fraud prevention tools monitor transactions to ensure that in-person payments are being made by the authorized user, based on behavioral patterns and prior usage history associated with the card or device. Tap-to-pay is also more secure than swiping a card because payment data is encrypted instantly, and there’s no magnetic stripe involved. Consumer can feel confident that their information is protected and that transactions are secure. Much of this security is invisible to the user, but it helps create a seamless and trustworthy experience for both merchants and consumers. Final Takeaways As consumer expectations continue to shift toward faster, more flexible payment experiences, tap-to-pay is becoming less of a convenience and more of a competitive necessity for businesses of all sizes. For micro merchants in particular, the technology removes many of the traditional barriers to accepting digital payments, allowing them to operate with greater mobility, lower overhead costs, and more direct access to customer insights. As smartphones become all-in-one business tools, tap-to-pay is set to play a central role in how small businesses sell, grow, and engage with customers in the years ahead. “There are so many use cases for that today, especially when you look at the makeup of small business in the U.S.,” said Apgar. “Field services like plumbers, electricians, and real estate agents—the use cases are almost limitless.” Craven added: “It is table stakes that people expect to be able to tap their device anytime and anywhere. Then you have the age-old problem, I don't have change for a $50 when I'm at the farmers market. It's all the benefits of card payments rolled into an easily accessible platform.”
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  Modern Cyber Risk Is Breaking Longstanding Security Assumptions 13.07.2026 27мин

  Modern geopolitical tensions now extend well beyond traditional statecraft. They increasingly manifest through wiper malware attacks, distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against critical organizations, and coordinated disinformation and influence operations designed to shape public perception in real time. Even as active flashpoints evolve and direct confrontation fluctuates, organizations are left operating in a sustained environment of elevated cyber and systemic risk. In a recent PaymentsJournal podcast, Teresa Walsh, CEO and Founder at Integrated Intelligence Solutions, and Tracy Goldberg, Director of Cybersecurity at Javelin Strategy  & Research, discussed how financial institutions can strengthen operational resilience and build more integrated cybersecurity strategies in response to this shifting threat landscape. Perhaps most importantly, the direction of travel is clear: public and private sector coordination is no longer optional. It’s becoming foundational to how organizations anticipate, withstand, and recover from disruption. The Changing Cyber-Risk Landscape These capabilities are increasingly critical because the cybersecurity landscape has reached an inflection point. Ongoing geopolitical volatility has pushed cyber resilience to a top priority for most organizations. Coordinated cyber-attack campaigns now often blend network intrusion, disruption, and disinformation, creating cascading impacts . “When two nations are fighting against each other, one of the things they'll always go after is your communications system and probably your energy systems as well, because they’re trying to disrupt the other guy and make their lives harder,” Walsh said. “If you're a private sector company, like a banker or some other type of company, you have to understand what you are going to do if you don't have access to the internet or if you don't have access to power to even turn your computers on,” she said. There are many documented examples of how these tactics are used in modern conflicts, including cyber attacks against critical infrastructure, large-scale malware campaigns, and disruptive events. These incidents can assume many forms. Disinformation and misinformation campaigns are especially prevalent during periods of instability, often used to create public confusion or shift narratives. There have also been cases where nation-states, directly or indirectly, leverage fraudulent activity, including account takeovers or money-mule recruitment to launder funds.  Increasingly, these operations are augmented or outsourced to third parties like hacktivist groups or cybercrime syndicates, which can operate independently or align with broader geopolitical objectives. Withstanding Disruption High impact cyber incidents have demonstrated how disruptive these types events can be . In some cases, enterprises have experienced widespread device outages, operational shutdowns, and recovery timelines extending over multiple weeks. This begs the question for all organizations, especially financial institutions: Are they prepared to withstand a 30-day disruption—whether impacting their own operations or those of a critical third-party provider? “Most of the time when we talk about disruption, even when your regulator talks about disruption, they're not talking in terms of 30 days,” Walsh said. “They're usually talking in terms of three hours or maybe a day or two. The concept of a 30-day disruption, that might completely wipe out a company, wipe out their entire profit, and wipe out their customer base and their reputation.” While such scenarios may appear unlikely, ongoing geopolitical instability and the increasing sophistication of cyber threats makes it essential for organizations to plan for extended disruption. Institutions must also look beyond their own operations. As reliance on third-party vendors grows—often across multiple jurisdictions—these relationships introduce additional systemic risk. For example, a fintech partner with significant operations in a region affected by a conflict could create downstream operational impacts for a bank. This makes it critical for financial services firms to map dependencies, identify concentration risk, and understand the complexity of their external ecosystem. “We talk so much about third-party risk, and we don't even have a handle on third parties, but no organization out there—I don't just limit it to financial institutions—has a good handle on who their fourth and fifth parties are,” Goldberg said. “As you are mapping out your enterprise and your systems and your network and all of those different entities upon which you rely, if any of those were to go down, what would the domino effect be?” she said. The Expanding Cyber Discussion Toward ‘Cyber Fusion’ Alongside external risks, internal approaches to resilience are often fragmented. One common challenge is the divide between fraud prevention and cybersecurity teams, which increasingly need to operate in close coordination. “When I started out at my first bank, my boss said that we in the cyber team have visibility that the fraud teams don't and we need to be able to share that with them,” Walsh said. “Anything that we have on the cyber side that can affect the fraud space—tell them, communicate, help them try to see how we can make it better and how we can make the bank more resistant to cybercriminals .” This collaboration becomes even more important during periods of geopolitical volatility, when cyber risk, financial crime, and fraud often converge. In these situations, policies related to know-your-customer and anti-money laundering may need to be adapted in response to changing cyber risk . Addressing these challenges requires enterprise-wide alignment and cross-functional coordination, which is becoming an important trend in modern resilience strategies. “We could even bring HR into the discussion; because we know, in addition to rogue employees, we also have individuals who are applying for positions who are just trying to infiltrate the organization,” Goldberg said. “But then you also have the socially engineered pieces ,” she said. “We know that most compromises getting into a company's network, or even data breaches, they usually come back to a phishing attack—someone was manipulated who has admin rights or access gets conned. There's a lot of ways that this cyber fusion discussion could expand.” The Role of the Private Sector Beyond internal collaboration, rising cyber threats have made cooperation between public entities and private organizations essential, particularly during periods of geopolitical instability. “We saw a wonderful example leading into the Ukraine war with Russia, where several U.S. technology companies and cybersecurity companies went in and helped them out,” Walsh said. “They helped them transfer vast amounts of information to the cloud to be able to make sure that if something did happen, the data wouldn't be lost forever, and they would still be able to operate.” “It was a wonderful example of how the private sector can help a country when these things happen,” she said. Often, private companies are well positioned to respond quickly due to access to specialized talent, infrastructure, and threat intelligence capabilities. However, this collaboration is not purely altruistic. Given the interconnected nature of the global digital economy, localized cyber incidents can rapidly escalate into broader systemic disruption, affecting industries and regions far beyond the initial target. “From a resiliency standpoint in the financial services industry, larger financial institutions have an obligation to share information with smaller institutions ,” Goldberg said. “And from a global perspective, especially as we think about cyber resilience, we're only as secure as those smallest nations.”