In a comment letter submitted today, the American Bankers Association expressed support for a proposal to implement same-day Automated Clearing House transactions by NACHA - The Electronic Payments Association.
The proposed change would enable most ACH transactions to be processed on the same-day.
“ABA strongly supports the NACHA same-day ACH proposal as a fundamental step to promote faster payments across the entire industry,” ABA said in its letter. The proposal has addressed many of the concerns that were raised by the banking industry when NACHA made a similar proposal in 2011, the association said.
ABA supports innovations to the payments system as long as the integrity of the system remains intact, consumers are protected and participants in the system are regulated similarly. In the comment letter, ABA addressed each of the proposed modifications:
- Interbank Compensation Framework: ABA strongly supports the interbank compensation fee model as a method to help receiving depository financial institutions absorb at least a portion of the costs of implementing and maintaining same-day ACH functionality.
- Phased in Approach: ABA supports this approach because it enables financial institutions to plan their system upgrades over a period of almost three years.
- Abbreviated Processing Times: ABA recommends that the deadline for granting ACH credit to customers be changed from 5 p.m. local time to 6 p.m. local time.
- Identification of Same-Day ACH Items: ABA appreciates the effort to utilize an existing field to identify same-day transactions, but it could prove troublesome. A better choice would be to clearly identify same-day ACH transactions through the use of a new Service Class Code located in the Batch Header Record.
ABA’s entire letter to NACHA, can be found here: http://www.aba.com/Advocacy/commentletters/Documents/cl-NACHA-SDA-2015Feb.pdf
The American Bankers Association is the voice of the nation’s $15 trillion banking industry, which is composed of small, regional and large banks that together employ more than 2 million peopt together empt together empt together employ more than 2 million people, safeguard $11 trillion in deposits and extend more than $8 trillion in loans. Learn more at aba.com.