The largest payments network, by volume, is the ACH network. A dollar value of several times US GDP flows through the network each quarter. It is a 50-year-old network that is reliable, ubiquitous, and still growing. While several shiny new payment rails have been developed, the workhorse of the economy remains ACH and will remain so for some time.
My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Jane Larimer, the President and CEO of Nacha, the organization that governs the ACH network. While I often feature people on this show to talk about cool and emerging technology, I also think it is critical that we understand the infrastructure that is in place today. And the ACH network is how the vast majority of payments are made.
In this podcast you will learn:
- The origin story of the ACH network.
- The first use case for the network.
- How they moved from paper checks to electronic payments.
- The mission of Nacha.
- Why some banks become direct members of Nacha.
- The staggering scale of the payments flowing through the ACH network.
- How the timing works for payments on the ACH network.
- Why the ACH network is unable to process payments on weekends (but that may be changing)
- Jane's perspective on instant payments and why she believes it is complementary to ACH.
- The cost difference between Same Day ACH and standard ACH.
- The big barrier to the adoption of any alternative payment rails.
- How fraud has changed in the past decade.
- Details of the education available on their website.
- How Jane see the future of payments playing out over the next decade.
Connect with Jane on LinkedIn
Connect with Nacha on LinkedIn
Connect with Fintech One-on-One:
