What happens when a-bank owned leader in payments fraud prevention and risk management, announces the acquisition of the largest U.S. bank-owned, real-time digital payments network?
The ability to deliver real-time payments to consumers, businesses and government customers, securely, that can also authenticate the digital identity of a consumer.
Or what happens when Early Warning acquires clearXchange, which was announced yesterday (Oct. 26).
“Our customers want the ability to make payments to anyone, in real-time, making funds instantly available in the recipient’s bank account. To achieve this, we are combining our collective, bank-owned digital payments network (clearXchange) with our fraud, risk and authentication assets (Early Warning), to further ensure that our customers can send money, confidently, securely, and in real-time via their financial institutions,” the CEOs of Bank of America, BB&T, Capital One, JPMorgan Chase, U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo said in a joint prepared statement.
Mike Kennedy, CEO of clearXchange believes that the ability to authenticate the digital identity of consumers in a real time world is essential since there’s “less time to identify fraudulent transactions.” In Kennedy’s view, it’s critical to have “industry-leading fraud protection tied into the industry-leading payments network.”
Bringing the two entities together will also enable the development of new and enhanced products to consumers and businesses, Kennedy added.
The companies are using the expertise each has garnered in their respective fields to bring consistency to financial institution payment services, while also solving for real customer issues today.
Lou Anne Alexander, Chief Market Development Officer at Early Warning, emphasized the uniqueness of the Early Warning/clearXchange matchup, describing it as a “pretty forceful combination.” Alexander’s view is that the integration of its fraud and risk management capabilities into a real-time payments network is something that “no one else in the industry can do.”
One of the capabilities that Early Warning brings to clearXchange is its support of transactions initiated on the mobile platform – customers can be authenticated in real time via Early Warning’s integration to the mobile carrier networks.
“Integrating those types of capabilities into the whole suite of services around peer-to-peer payments, disbursements, as well as bill pay will certainly enable consumers to do things they can’t do today,” Alexander added. And for banks to be confident that the identity of the consumer can be authenticated.
As the two companies work together to iron out the details of the deal, both Kennedy and Alexander agreed that being able to serve customers on a network that is available right now is a competitive advantage unique to unified efforts.
“This is something that is live in the market today. It’s real-time, faster payments, same-day, — it’s live today and it works. Just by combining forces we’ve taken what is already the two best companies in the industry for what they do, who, together, will deliver real-time payments at scale – and do it securely, Kennedy said.
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