TCH, FIS Submit Real-Time Payments Vision To Fed

The Clearing House (TCH), the payments firm owned by commercial banks, said that, at the end of last week, it offered up a proposal alongside FIS to the Federal Reserve’s Faster Payments Task Force requesting evaluation of its real-time payments (RTP) system.

In a press release on Monday (April 25), TCH said that it is offering up the payments platform, while FIS is offering RTP services to as many as 3,000 financial institutions.

As has been widely reported, the Faster Payments Task Force has a mandate to assess new approaches that would further the evolution of faster payments in the United States and has 36 criteria for effectiveness that TCH says it has met. TCH and FIS have been working together since October of last year. The initial focus will be on bill payments, and the expected launch of a pilot program to go live is targeted for Q1 2017. Additional partnerships between TCH and Jack Henry and D+H mean that the reach will be broadened to as many as 10,000 FIs.

The initiative will allow financial institutions to use existing account credentials, which helps eliminate the need for enrollment. The RTP system, said the firms, also has the ability to be used across supply chain management, customer service refunds or general service payments.

In a statement, Jim Aramanda, chief executive officer of TCH, said: “TCH is implementing a foundational clearing and settlement system whose core attributes will enable financial institutions to develop innovative new products for their customers. We know that if our system meets the needs of customers in terms of innovative services, speed, efficiency and security, there is no reason it won’t also align with the Task Force’s criteria.”