The Clearing House is bidding to win over community banks and credit unions to its real-time payments network, opening up four new seats for smaller depository institutions on the RTP Business Committee.
The move comes in response to reluctance from smaller banks to engage with The Clearing House's objectives, suspicious of the power exerted by TCH's top tier banking membership.
The four new representatives from banks and credit unions will join the existing RTP Business Committee which has representatives from each of the 24 TCH member banks.
The addition of four members to the RTP Business Committee expands the influence of community banks and credit unions in the governance of the newest core payments rail to be introduced in the US in more than 40 years.
The RTP Business Committee meets monthly to provide input and guidance to the strategic execution of the RTP network, ensuring prudent risk management practices are followed and promoting the design, operation, and management of the system.
“The RTP network was built for financial institutions of all sizes,” insists Jim Aramanda, President and CEO at The Clearing House. “Having four new financial institutions at the table representing system users of different sizes will help ensure that the network fully incorporates the needs of all users as real-time payments become universally available throughout the country.”
The additional four seats on the committee are accompanied by the release a new set of transparent Business Principles, which stipulate that the network is run as a utility for the benefit of the industry and that RTP fees shall continue to be flat for all participants regardless of size, and shall not include volume discounts or minimum volume requirements, among other principles.