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Faster payments have been a hot item in the global headlines. The U.S. is in the midst of developing real-time payment capabilities. Behind most other countries, the U.S. currently has two major efforts in force—both expected to gain headway in 2017—set to tackle the issue and bring real-time payments into the system. The Clearing House has a single-system solution and Federal Reserve’s Faster Payments Task Force will potentially choose more than one solution among a wide range of options submitted by would-be faster payment technology providers. Presently, there’s no clear-cut answer to how the U.S. will join the rest of the world in real-time payments.

Potential Real-Time Solutions Abound

Unlike most other countries, the U.S. could end up with multiple solutions supporting real-time payments. Banks would conceivably choose the solution that works best for their needs, resulting in the potential for disjointedness and inoperability between different solutions. As explained recently on Forbes, “the country has 20,000 deposit taking organizations and lots of new entrants in the last five to seven years, including non-bank providers. Payments run on older rails, wires, ACH and cash…(and) some banks are on closed-loop real-time payment systems, but a faster payment system that reaches most, or all, of the country’s financial institution is still in development.”

This concern is explored in Multiple Models Threaten ‘Real-Time’ Payments in the U.S. on PaymentsSource.

Professionals’ Perceptions of Faster Payment Initiatives in the U.S.

What are financial professionals doing in the meantime? For the most part, it’s business as usual, although they continue to explore electronic payment methods that at least speed up and streamline the payments process. The 2016 Electronic Payments Survey from the Association for Financial Professionals (AFP) and J.P. Morgan provides insights into how electronic payments currently factor into organizations’ payments processes. Here are survey highlights:

Additionally—and this is worth mentioning—51% of organizations’ B2B payments continue to be made by check. While this is down from 81% in 2004, checks continue to be the scourge of the faster payment movement. For further reading, take a look at You Have the Technology, Rid Your Organization of Paper Checks and PYMNTS.com’s The Fastest Path To Faster Payments In The US.

Growth in Electronic Payments

Naturally, electronic payments are the fastest—a check payment can’t come close to real-time—impacting speed, security, efficiency, international business, and collaboration, the five outcomes resulting from the Federal Reserve’s proposed strategies for faster payments. See U.S. Real Time Payments: Full Steam Ahead? for more.

There’s no debate: technology is driving real-time (or at least faster) payments progress. Reported in A Regulator’s View Of Faster Payments on PYMNTS.com, Kathleen Oldenborg, the Director for Payment Systems Policy of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, has this to say about the upcoming launch of Faster Payments in the U.S.: “As faster payments continue to grow in accessibility and use, and cement the relationship between banking and technology, digital solutions will keep playing a major role in the financial ecosystem.”

What about other options for faster payments? Virtual card numbers (VCNs) are being adopted for more B2B payments in part to their facilitation of faster payments, particularly for cross-border transactions. They’re also delivered at a much lower cost than those sent via wire or ACH. The 16-digit VCNs are processed just like plastic credit cards and are sent through the major credit card network, and offer tighter controls and richer remittance data. Their impact on the payments cycle, end-to-end, makes them an excellent option for secure, faster-than-the-traditional-methods B2B payments.

Learn more in Four Barriers to E-Payments Adoption (and How Virtual Cards Overcome) and 5 Reasons Your Suppliers Love To Receive Virtual Payments.