92% of Healthcare Companies Plan to Embrace Real-Time Payments

FedNow is right now.

And with the move into real-time payments, the stage is set for a continued embrace of faster transactions, modernizing trillion-dollar industries that have thus far been reliant on paper checks, paper invoices, and a host of inefficiencies in the mix.

As detailed in the report “Digital Payments: Expanding the Payments Palette,” done in collaboration between PYMNTS and Corcentric, there’s been a growing recognition of the benefits of digitization.

The urge to improve the visibility and the speed of transactions finds its roots, most recently, in the pandemic, as businesses have needed to improve their relationships with suppliers and end users.

As we’ve noted, businesses, by and large, support a range of firmly entrenched business transactions. In one example, 93% of finance and insurance businesses support credit card transactions, and 88% support debit card transactions.

Drill down a bit, and there’s a greenfield opportunity to get digital options more firmly into the mix. 

The same report found that, for example, just 37% of finance and insurance businesses support ePayables.

Beyond financial services, the healthcare industry is ripe for a data driven overhaul. Roughly 96% of healthcare companies support credit card payments and 84% of healthcare companies support debit card payments.

eChecks and Beyond

There’s some evidence that healthcare firms are pivoting towards taking traditional payment methods into the realm of bits and bytes. The data show that 67% of healthcare companies support eChecks.

With the advent of real-time payments, there’s the need for speed. Of the 250 healthcare and finance professionals surveyed, of the companies that have not made specific investments, 86% of finance and investment professionals have real-time payments on their investment road maps.  

That tally is topped by the 92% of healthcare firms that, as they are looking to make investments in new payments initiatives, are planning the same. Of the companies have already have made the real-time leap: 53% of healthcare companies and finance and insurance businesses already support real-time payments, 81% of healthcare companies and 67% of finance and insurance businesses that are “already here” say they plan to continue investing in this technology.