It seems that every payment network in the United States is going through some sort of significant change. Even the check world, where little changes on a yearly basis, is faced with significant updates to Regulation CC. Those changes are not effective until next year but banks need to be preparing for those now! [Continue]
Why can’t consumers and business managers send and receive payments as easily as they can send and receive email messages?
That’s a question Kevin Christensen has been pondering for some time. Christensen is vice president, risk and financial services, for SHAZAM, the Johnston, Iowa-based electronic funds transfer company. Along with Bob Steen, CEO of Bridge Community Bank, Mechanicsville, Iowa, and Tina Giorgio, president/CEO of ICBA Bancard & TCM Bank, Christensen participated in a panel discussion on payments at the annual convention of the Community Bankers of Iowa in Okoboji on July 21, one day prior to the long awaited release of the final report from the Federal Reserve’s Faster Payments Task Force.
Christensen highlighted the interoperability of the email system. Regardless of the company behind the email – Gmail, AOL, Yahoo and others – users can send and receive messages to and from each other without delay. Christensen said that level of “functional interoperability” is what he is seeking in payments. He said the technology already exists; the hurdles are mainly political. “Transferring payments from one organization to the next can occur easily if we just agree to do it,” he said. [Continue]
With publication of the final report from the Fed’s Faster Payments Task Force, effort to update payments system intensifies. [Continue]