The results are in! NACHA 2019 real-time payments and payments modernisation survey.

Thank you to all who completed our recent survey, developed in partnership with InstaPay.  As you’ll remember, the aim of the survey was to understand how far along banks are from adopting Real-Time Payments (RTP) and payment modernisation initiatives in the US, as well as identifying their reasons for adoption.

The ‘quick fire’ survey has yielded some interesting responses from the industry. The majority of banks, 65%, are now live or have started work towards implementation of RTP, with a mix of Zelle and TCH being the main vehicles for provision, with many connecting to both schemes.

As can be seen globally, the adoption of RTP and payments modernisation initiatives is bringing huge opportunities to financial institutions, and this is no different in the US. Over 60% of respondents saw RTP and payments modernisation as an opportunity to enable new products and services, with over 40% believing that adopting RTP would help them to attract new customers. Over 50% of respondents identified the main driver for RTP adoption as ‘the opportunity to upgrade payments architecture to enable payments transformation’, with a significant 80% having some kind of payments modernization programme.

Commenting on the results, Simon Wilson, Director of Payments at Icon Solutions said, “The survey results reflect the many conversations we had this year at NACHA Payments 2019. US institutions have a clear desire to leverage the benefits of RTP, deliver new services and move beyond a simplistic ‘faster is better’ mantra. As part of this journey, banks are increasingly looking at using RTP to kickstart wider payments transformation programmes, such as a more ubiquitous approach to the use of ISO20022 to deliver the combined benefits of speed and data.”

Thanks again to all those that completed this survey. I am sure we will see an uptake in RTP and payments transformation initiatives within banks in the coming months, and will no doubt see very different survey results this time next year.