I try to attend the NACHA Payments Conference every year to keep up with trends in the US payments industry. This year it was in Austin, TX (yay!) My main takeaways/scoop:
- Zelle, a payment network launched by Early Warning, generated a lot of buzz with their person-to-person (P2P) network targeting banks. Zelle allows bank customers to send, request and split payments through their bank’s mobile applications (something folks in Europe have done for a while now). Zelle’s platform helps banks compete with payment apps like Venmo.
- John Meyer, Chief Product Officer at Banker’s Toolbox, gave an entertaining, illuminating and frightening presentation over the Dark Web. Online fraud will only increase in the US after the EMV (chip and signature) implementation, and John’s presentation allowed us to peak behind the curtain and see what tools are at a fraudster’s disposal.
- NACHA awarded their Excellence in Payments Award to Earthport, a cross-border payments network.
- Rabobank, a Dutch bank, will begin using ACI Worldwide’s UP Immediate Payments
- Melanie Barteaux from Accept Email, gave an informative presentation on how their platform utilizes email, sms and social media, to invoice and provide payment options to clients. Accept Email is an Amsterdam based company that has 95% market share in the Netherlands.
- Vocalink, an UK based payments company that stood out at last year’s conference for their data analytics capabilities, was acquired by MasterCard.