Five reasons why credit unions need to be in real-time payments
Whether you intend to jump into RTP or start slowly, be sure to plan for the future of payments at your credit union.
Credit unions already offer their members many different options for payments: debit cards, credit cards, online bill-pay (which typically results in an automated clearing house transaction), old-fashioned checks and wire transfer, along with digital issuance to push credit union-branded credit or debit cards into mobile wallets. But there is currently a revolution underway in payments, and it’s called real-time payments.
RTP represents a new payments “rail,” meaning a completely different method of access. Moving money from the sender’s account to the recipient’s account—otherwise known as the settlement of a real-time payment transaction—happens at the same time as the payment authorization. Real-time payments cannot be stopped or reversed once they are approved.
This new payment access has many upsides:
- Funds are available immediately in the recipient’s account
- There is lower potential for fraud since there are only “push” payments (credits) and no “pull” payments (debits), and each send request is validated prior to payment authorization
continue reading »
