The New York Clearing House has upgraded the Clearing House Interbank Payment System (Chips) to provide corporations with real-time final payment transactions with related payment details.
As a result of the changes, corporations will be able to instantaneously match payments to orders, allowing them to release shipments more quickly with no payment risk says the NYCH.
"It's a capability our banks and their corporate customers have needed for a long time," explains William Rhodes, vice chairman of Citigroup and chairman of Chips. "Corporations already have very sophisticated accounts receivable processes. Now the linking of the payment to the invoice data will greatly speed the process while reducing payment risk and operating expense."
Payors can send up to 9000 characters of data with the payment, including invoice numbers, discount details, rebates and more. The system is aligned with the Swift MT 103 message format and supports the American and United National EDI standards, XML and other user-defined formats.
Banks receiving payments on behalf of corporate customers must be able to receive and forward the EDI information as well. John Mohr, Chips chief operating officer, says: "Our 59 clearing member banks and hundreds of end points have made the system changes, completed testing, and are ready to handle EDI transactions, effective today."
The Chips system currently processes in excess of $1.3 trillion per day.