Blogs

Financial Institutions: The SMB Opportunity Is Yours to Seize

By Joe Casali AAP, AFPP, APRP posted 08-13-2025
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Many financial institutions (FIs) have a powerful opportunity to deepen their relationships with small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs). Research from the Aite-Novarica Group reveals that 65% of SMBs are exploring solutions beyond their primary financial institutions—not out of preference, but due to unmet needs [i] . This signals a strong demand for more tailored, responsive services—an open door for FIs to step in, innovate, and become trusted partners in SMB growth. “Inherently, we see a need for financial institutions to take advantage of that and prevent SMBs from being serviced by third parties or non-financial institutions using bank-like services,” ...
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July 2025 Innovating Payments Executive Summary— FedNow® Service Hits Two-Year Milestone

By Joe Casali AAP, AFPP, APRP posted 07-11-2025
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Welcome to the July 2025 Innovating Payments Executive Summary. This month marks two years since the launch of the FedNow Service, which continues to play an increasing role in the payments landscape. To support this growth, the Federal Reserve Financial Services introduced a new account activity threshold feature, allowing financial institutions to better manage risk by setting limits based on customer segments. The update also increases the transaction limit from $500,000 to $1 million to accommodate higher-value, business-related transactions. At the policy level, Nacha and other industry groups have voiced strong support for Executive Order 14247, ...
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October 2024 Executive Summary— The Faster Payments Council Releases 2024 U.S. Instant Payments Adoption Quantitative Study

By Joe Casali AAP, AFPP, APRP posted 10-22-2024
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Welcome to the October 2024 Executive Summary. In this issue, the U.S. Faster Payments Council announced it has released its 2024 U.S. Instant Payments Adoption Quantitative Study, a first-of-its-kind survey of U.S.-based third-party enablers to financial institutions. In addition, the Federal Reserve convened a scams information sharing industry work group of fraud experts, and they recommended creating a solution or establishing an independent information exchange framework to provide a holistic view of scam intelligence. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) also released its 2024 Small Business Lending Survey Report (SBLS) . In the news this ...
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Onboarding FedNow: Insights from Kevin Olsen at PMC 2024

By Raven NEACH Marketing Maven posted 08-07-2024
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At the recent 2024 Payments Management Conference, we sat down with Kevin Olsen, Senior Vice President of Innovation and Strategy at Pidgin, for an enlightening discussion on the intricacies of onboarding FedNow. With his extensive experience in payments and a knack for simplifying complex processes, Kevin shared valuable insights on what financial institutions need to know about integrating with FedNow. A Growing Demand for FedNow There's a significant rush for financial institutions to get onboard with FedNow. The recent announcement of 777 institutions being onboarded highlights the rapid adoption and the growing trust in this new payment system. ...
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FedNow® a year later: What have we learned?

By Mark Dixon posted 07-30-2024
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As we sail through July, it strikes me that we’re celebrating the one-year anniversary of the launch of FedNow ® . July 20, 2023 , was a big day for the industry, with the Federal Reserve’s much-anticipated instant payments system finally going live with 35 early adopting financial institutions (FIs) and 16 service providers. A year later, we’re up to more than 902 FIs on the FedNow network, and those numbers continue to grow. Slowly but surely, adoption has started to climb. And while there’s been a lot of progress, there continues to be room to prioritize instant payments as part of a larger business strategy. We’ve learned some hard, but important, ...
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Navigating Third-Party Relationships in Banking with Nanci McKenzie

By Raven NEACH Marketing Maven posted 07-24-2024
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In a recent episode of the Wrestling Payments podcast , Joe Casali welcomes back Nanci McKenzie, an independent consultant and expert in banking and risk management, to discuss third-party relationships in the financial industry. Recorded live at the 2024 Payments Management Conference (PMC), this episode offers a comprehensive update on regulatory changes, risk management, and the evolving nature of third-party relationships. Evolving Third-Party Relationship Guidelines The financial landscape has seen significant changes, particularly regarding third-party relationships. Nanci explains that the updated interagency guidance approved in June 2023 ...
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Recent Cyberattack: Why Financial Institution Employees Should Pay Attention

By Raven NEACH Marketing Maven posted 07-24-2024
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Cybersecurity recently made headlines when a tech outage disrupted payment networks, financial institutions, airlines, and other businesses worldwide. This disruption was ironically caused by a cybersecurity firm's software update, highlighting our dependence on technology and the critical importance of robust security measures. A Real-Time Lesson in Cybersecurity A cybersecurity expert shared their experience of witnessing a financial institution publicly disclose a cyberattack during a presentation on the connection between payments and cybersecurity. This real-time incident underscored the importance of staying informed about current cyber threat ...
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Recommendations for New England Banks and Credit Unions to Enhance Risk Management

By Raven NEACH Marketing Maven posted 07-23-2024
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In light of the recent assessment by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), which highlights significant deficiencies in the operational risk management of many large banks, it is crucial for New England banks and credit unions to take proactive steps to strengthen their risk management frameworks. The following recommendations can help these financial institutions enhance their resilience against various risks, including cyberattacks and operational errors: 1. Enhance Cybersecurity Measures Conduct Regular Risk Assessments: Regularly evaluate cybersecurity risks to identify vulnerabilities and potential threats. Implement ...
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Pursuing Payments Excellence: The Faster Payments Professional (FPP) Certificate Program

By Mark Dixon posted 07-22-2024
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In every industry, there exists a prized pinnacle, a point at which one is recognized as an expert in their field. In entertainment, that air of honor culminates in industry awards, with the elusive EGOT at its summit. The EGOT stands for Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony, and the distinction is only earned when an entertainer has received all four. For Alexandra Martinez, AAP, APRP, Senior Payment Specialist at CFSB, a full-service payments, lending and banking provider based in New York, payments certifications represent her personal peak. “I always joke about saying I want to one day get an EGOT. I view the AAP [Accredited ACH Professional], ...
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What’s Next for Payments in 2024— Core Providers Weigh In

By Joe Casali AAP, AFPP, APRP posted 06-06-2024
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In February, NEACH leadership weighed in on what to expect in 2024 ( part 1 and part 2 ), advising financial institutions on the best ways to prepare. As a continuation of that discussion, we spoke with four major third-party core providers and asked them to share their insights and perspectives for the year ahead. With so many hot topics—instant and faster payments, data and AI, and evolving customer and member expectations—knowing where to invest energy and resources in 2024 is a high priority for financial institutions. Below, we highlight four areas at the top of NEACH’s, financial institutions’, and core providers' minds. · ...
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Jack Henry & Associates Perspective: What’s Next for Payments in 2024

By Joe Casali AAP, AFPP, APRP posted 06-06-2024
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In Q1 2024, NEACH sat down with several major third-party providers to gain insights into what’s happening with payments. Tede Forman, President of Payment Solutions at Jack Henry, shared his thoughts on how payments are shifting and what to expect in the coming months. What follows is a summary of our conversation. NEACH: What do you see as the next big shift in payments that banks and credit unions need to consider? Why? Forman: An industry-wide movement to improve payments has led to the emergence of new instant payment rails—FedNow ® and The Clearing House’s RTP ® network, as well as offerings like Zelle and our Payrailz ...
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Fiserv’s Perspective: What’s Next for Payments in 2024

By Joe Casali AAP, AFPP, APRP posted 06-06-2024
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In Q1 2024, NEACH sat down with major third-party providers to gain insights into what’s happening with payments. Matt Wilcox, President of Digital Payment Solutions for Fiserv, and Dudley White, President of Core Account Processing Solutions for Fiserv, shared their thoughts on how payments are shifting and what to expect in the coming months. What follows is a summary of our conversation. NEACH: What do you see as the next big shift in payments that banks and credit unions need to consider? Why? Wilcox: The first would be real-time payments. Financial institutions have to consider how to connect, when to connect, which networks ...
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Finastra Perspective: What’s Next for Payments in 2024

By Joe Casali AAP, AFPP, APRP posted 06-06-2024
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In Q1 2024, NEACH sat down with several major third-party providers to gain insights into what’s happening with payments. Mihail Duta, Director, Solution Consulting, Payments, Americas, shared his thoughts on how payments are shifting and what to expect in the coming months. What follows is a summary of our conversation. NEACH: With so much talk about data and AI, are/how are these technologies playing into your plans for supporting banks and credit unions? Why? Duta: At Finastra, we view GenAI as a tool to help alleviate and streamline more administrative tasks such as summarization and semantic search and ...
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COCC Perspective: What’s Next for Payments in 2024

By Joe Casali AAP, AFPP, APRP posted 06-06-2024
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In Q1 2024, NEACH sat down with major third-party providers to gain insights into what’s happening with payments. Alex Campbell, Vice President, Client Services at COCC, shared thoughts on how payments are shifting and what to expect in the coming months. What follows is a summary of our conversation. NEACH: What do you see as the next big shift in payments that banks and credit unions need to consider? Why? Campbell: Emerging shifts in payments, such as real-time and instant - payment methods , will continue to gain prominence, adding new use cases. This necessitates ...
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NEACH’s 2023 Future of Payments Symposium: FedNow® Early Adopters Panel

By Joe Casali AAP, AFPP, APRP posted 12-08-2023
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NEACH brought together banking, payments, and FinTech professionals for its annual Future of Payments Symposium , held virtually Nov. 2-3, to address the evolution of the payments landscape and its impact on financial institutions. The conference opened with “The FedNow ® Early Adopters Panel,” featuring Michael O’Brien Assistant Vice President of Payment Strategies at Eastern Corporate Federal Credit Union (Eascorp), and subsidiary, Vertifi Software, and Robert Ames, head of digital delivery at Salem Five Bank, with Joe Casali, Executive Vice President at NEACH serving as moderator. What follows are highlights from this roundtable discussion. Casali: ...
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October 2023 Innovating Payments Executive Summary—FedNow® Service Hits New Milestone with More Than 100 Participating Organizations

By Joe Casali AAP, AFPP, APRP posted 10-16-2023
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Welcome to the Oct. 2023 Innovating Payments Executive Summary — FedNow® Service Hits New Milestone with More Than 100 Participating Organizations. In this issue, the Federal Reserve announced that the FedNow Service has experienced strong growth, with 108 institutions now sending and receiving on the network. Also in the news, Boston Fed First Vice President and Chief Operating Officer (COO) Kenneth C. Montgomery announced his plans to retire in the spring of 2024, after 40 years of service to the Federal Reserve System. In other news, credit union members are seeking innovative cryptocurrency services from their financial institutions. Meanwhile, U.S. ...
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Aug. 31 FedNow® Town Hall: Early Adopters Share Excitement and Experiences

By Joe Casali AAP, AFPP, APRP posted 10-09-2023
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During the Aug. 31 FedNow town hall , early adopters shared their excitement about the service, which continues to gain momentum, according to Senior Vice President and FedNow Business Executive Nick Stanescu. "In just one month since launching the FedNow Service," said Stanescu, "we've gone from 35 live financial institutions and 16 service providers to 62 participating financial institutions and 20 service providers ready to support payment activity, and these numbers are growing weekly." The growth rate in one month is significant by any measure and speaks to the growing interest in and demands for instant payments using the FedNow service. Early ...
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Member Update: The Importance of Micro-Entries

By Elyssa Morgan posted 08-08-2023
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Phase 2 of Nacha’s Micro-Entry Rule became effective as of March 17, 2023, stating “ Originators of Micro-Entries will be required to use commercially reasonable fraud detection, including the monitoring of Micro-Entry forward and return volumes.” And therein lies the uncertainty. The statement “commercially reasonable fraud detection” has historically been a point of confusion for financial institutions (FIs), precisely because it has a degree of ambiguity and what may be “commercially reasonable” for one institution may not for another one. Calls to the NEACH Payments Hotline around Micro-Entries nearly always seek clarity on what constitutes ...
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Is it Love, or an Encounter You Will Regret?

By Rayleen Pirnie BCJ, AAP, CERP posted 04-20-2023
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He’s perfect. He likes everything you do; he’s funny, witty, and has a great job. He says all the right things. His photo made you go “oh, hi there!” While you just recently met online, you just know that he’s perfect in every way. The online messages, emails, texts, and calls get serious quickly; he professes his love, though you’ve never met in-person. You feel the same. He tells you that he just “knows” you are the one for him. He even sent you roses after you told him what a horrible day you had. Is this truly your dream-guy (or girl)? Maybe; unfortunately, there’s a greater chance that it’s a scammer sitting in a cybercafé in another country using ...
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Member Update: Mitigating Credit-Push and Account-to-Account Fraud

By Elyssa Morgan posted 04-18-2023
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We’ve all seen the news or have experienced it first-hand: Credit-push or account-to-account fraud is on the rise. In fact, the Federal Trade Commission just reported that more than $2.3 billion was lost by consumers in 2021 due to imposter scams, up 92% from 2020. Whether it’s a swindle where a fraudster convinces a customer or member to send them money under false pretenses (think romance scams) or a case of account takeover, spoofing, phishing, or email compromise, fraudsters have been working their way into credit payments. And these developments aren’t limited to one payment rail. They are being sent on card rails, as well as ACH and beyond. ...
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