Embedded real-time payments allow companies, regardless of industry, to offer real-time payment services directly to their clients. By ‘embedding’ payments, companies leverage real-time payment technology to effectively eliminate the extra process layers – and time — necessary to complete transactions in ‘traditional’ ways.
There’s a lot to be excited about this year when it comes to digital payments and money movement. Along with our clients at U.S. Bank, I’m particularly pleased to see the growth of real-time payments and the RTP network. The payments and money movement industries are truly thriving as businesses look to RTP to make their operations more efficient and improve the payment experience for their customers, employees and vendors.
Still, we can’t take for granted that we’re using technology and optimizing business in new and amazing ways, and I’m often asked ‘what does it take?’ to identify opportunities and maximize the value of embedded real-time payments? It’s pretty straightforward, actually: build, connect, and innovate.
Build
The establishment and trajectory of the Real-Time Payments (RTP®) network is a great example of the future of payments come to life. RTP is purposely built for our fast-paced, modern economy with 24/7 access to funds, automated processing and rich payment and remittance data that allows businesses to streamline reconciliation and back-office processing. For businesses ready to optimize money movement with digital payments, the transformation process begins by building a foundation from RTP.
Connect
I’m confident that 2022 is the year we’re able to not just enable clients on the RTP network but do it in new and innovative ways that go beyond the need, truly exceeding client expectations. Recently, The Clearing House (TCH) announced the transaction limit increase on the RTP network up to $1 million. The business value could be limitless. Think about the everyday volumes of high-value transactions in commercial and consumer escrow closings, corporate investments management or auto dealer services. But those are multi-directional transactions, often between several disparate stakeholders, all vying to increase customer satisfaction and bottom-line results. By using RTP and payments technology to embed the payments experience within business systems, we’re able to connect stakeholders, and connect them more effectively to their clients and customers; the results are clear, we’re seeing faster, more flexible, smile-worthy experiences across the entire transactional chain.
Innovate
Despite the fundamental benefits of RTP and connectivity, there’s no such thing as ‘one size fits all.’ But there are so many cases where ‘scalability’ is synonymous with ‘innovation.’ And innovation is not limited to scalability, so as we’re building and connecting business and customers of any size or industry, it is paramount that we keep the customer in focus, front-and-center. Innovation means we listen to our customers, then partner with them, and sometimes other FinTech providers, to identify and develop the digital capabilities that can add value to their business and serve their customers better. Innovation is, in a word, the product of building with RTP and connecting at the newfound intersections of embedded payments.
That’s pretty cool.
I’m looking forward to joining everyone in-person at this year’s Mobile Payments Conference in Atlanta. Until then, I invite you to learn more about how U.S. Bank is helping clients build, connect and innovate.
AUTHOR
Peter Gordon, Head of Emerging Money Movement at U.S. Bank, leads strategy and development for emerging money movement products and services, including Zelle and Real-time payments (RTP). An RTP veteran with over 30 years of global financial services experience, Gordon joined U.S. Bank in 2019 after serving as chief revenue officer at PayFi. He has also held leadership roles at Mastercard, Santander, RBS Citizens, eCom Advisors, First Commons Bank and FIS.