The Electronic Payments Association® have released a Request for Comment (RFC) on Same Day ACH. The RFC outlines a proposal for new, ubiquitous clearing and settlement options to move virtually any ACH payment faster, expanding upon traditional ACH functionality.

“In today’s environment, everyone wants things faster, including payments,” said Janet O. Estep, president and CEO of NACHA. “Moving forward now signals an immediate, tangible commitment to provide choices for the consumers, businesses and government agencies who want to move money more quickly and efficiently, directly between bank accounts.”

Phased approach

In March 2014, NACHA announced a “phased approach” to implementing new Same Day ACH functionality, and that phased implementation approach is the basis for this Same Day ACH proposal. This approach introduces two new same-day settlement windows, for a total of three ACH Network settlements each day.

In developing the proposal, NACHA engaged an external, expert consulting firm to evaluate independently the industry’s costs, potential use cases and transaction volume for Same Day ACH. More than 200 surveys and in-depth interviews were conducted with financial institutions of all sizes, businesses, and core banking processors to get detailed information on anticipated volumes, opportunities and costs.

Likely users

The research outlined how Same Day ACH payments would be generated from 10 primary use cases, and 63 sub-use cases, including same-day payrolls, expedited bill payments, business-to-business (B2B) payments, and account-to-account (A2A) transfers. The majority of Same Day ACH payments are expected to enhance existing ACH applications, giving consumers and businesses the choice of speed.Under NACHA’s proposal, all Receiving Depository Financial Institutions (RDFIs) will be mandated to receive Same Day ACH files and to make funds available to their customers by the end of the work day. These requirements ensure certainty and value for consumers, businesses and government agencies who want the option to send Same Day ACH payments to any bank account in the U.S.

Financial support for ubiquity

To support this ubiquity, the RFC also introduces an interbank fee as a mechanism for RDFIs to recover the implementation and ongoing costs necessary to enable Same Day ACH. The fee would be paid to the RDFI, which would be required to implement and support same-day payment receipt, by the Originating Depository Financial Institution (ODFI), which would have the opportunity to support new payment offerings for its customers.

“Being able to move payments faster to every financial institution in the U.S. is critical to creating value for the consumers, businesses and government agencies who move their money via ACH,” said Estep. “Requiring RDFIs to implement Same Day ACH ensures this value, and the use of an interbank fee supports this requirement.”

The proposal also includes a built-in “checks and balances” methodology to measure the effectiveness of the inter-bank fee at defined intervals, with opportunities to reduce the fee if actual Same Day ACH volume exceeds projections.

Comment here  

The RFC is open until February 6, 2015. All ACH stakeholders are encouraged to participate in rulemaking and respond to the RFC, here: Request for Comment on Same Day ACH to Move Payments Faster | NACHA. Time warning: even though response is via Survey Monkey, it will take respondents ‘a while’ to complete.