Pelican Launches Real-Time Payments In The U.S.

Payments technology and security company Pelican is expanding its real-time payments capabilities into the U.S.

The company announced news on Wednesday (Jan. 31) that PelicanFast, its platform that facilitates real-time payments for banks and businesses, will enter the U.S. market after earning approval to loop into other real-time payments schemes, including the EU’s SEPA Instant Credit Transfer scheme.

In the U.S., Pelican noted, the Federal Reserve and NACHA are pushing for greater adoption of real-time payments capabilities in the nation’s payments system.

“Implementing real-time payments can, however, be a highly complex process that challenges the technical and compliance capabilities of existing legacy environments designed for batch processing,” Pelican said in its release, adding that PelicanFast enables financial institutions to adopt real-time payments capabilities with less administrative and implementation burden.

“While there is currently no regulatory obligation in the U.S. to adopt real-time payment capabilities, the need to innovate and enhance legacy batch capabilities for today’s dynamic digital market is very much essential for banks who wish to retain market share and capture new customers,” said Pelican Founder and CEO Parth Desai in a statement. “The new tech entrants with innovative, real-time capabilities threaten to significantly disrupt the traditional, slow-moving payments infrastructure and processes. American customers, both business and consumer, increasingly expect real-time banking and payments services.”

In addition to accelerating payments, PelicanFast also integrates payments security and fraud prevention for its FI clients. The company said it deploys artificial intelligence and natural language processing to ensure regulatory compliance and to safeguard transactions.

Pelican launched PelicanFast last February. At the time, the solution rolled out across the European Union to support real-time transactions across member state borders.

That same month, Pelican also announced the integration of artificial intelligence in its solution to combat payments fraud via the Pelican Secure Fraud Prevention tool for its customers.