Senior executives from credit unions, community and mid-size banks, and trade associations to provide input on the operation of RTP

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:
Sean Oblack
202.649.4629

New York, NY – February 1, 2018 – Today, The Clearing House (TCH) announced it has formed an RTP® Advisory Committee from a diverse set of financial institution stakeholders to obtain input on the operation of its new real-time payments system. The committee is comprised of senior executives from credit unions, community and mid-size banks, and trade associations. The committee is charged with providing perspectives that will help RTP continue to be responsive to all financial institutions and drive adoption of RTP in an effort to achieve the goal of ubiquity by 2020.

Last November, TCH launched RTP®, its real-time payments system, the first new core payments infrastructure in the U.S. in more than 40 years.  RTP meets the objectives of the Federal Reserve Faster Payments Task Force, and is open to all U.S depository institutions. 

“We appreciate The Clearing House establishing this committee so that smaller and mid-sized financial institutions have a voice in the development of RTP,” said Pat Thelen, UMB Bank President of Bank Product and Services, chair of the RTP Advisory Committee.  “The industry is excited about the innovative solutions real-time payments will enable, and this committee will help the new network meet the needs of financial institutions of all sizes and the customers they serve.”

“For RTP to truly be successful, it needs to connect to financial institutions of all shapes and sizes all across the country,” said Jeff Plagge, President and CEO of Northwest Financial Corporation, vice chair of the RTP Advisory Committee.  “This committee will provide financial institutions outside of TCH’s ownership the opportunity to influence the direction of RTP.” 

The Committee will meet at least four times a year and will have two primary responsibilities. The first is to provide input into the strategic execution of RTP.  And the other is to provide advice and support to TCH regarding RTP rules changes and RTP-related business initiatives, including new products and expansion of service to ensure that the system continues to provide value and meets the future needs of its users.

“From day one, TCH has been committed to making RTP ubiquitous among U.S. financial institutions,” said Steve Ledford, SVP of Product Strategy and Development at The Clearing House.  “With that in mind, we made the development of RTP a collaborative effort seeking feedback from a diverse set of stakeholders in the payments system.  This committee represents our latest effort to ensure RTP meets the demands of all financial institutions across the country.”

Similar to Wires and ACH, RTP will become part of the core industry infrastructure with the potential to support many use cases and underpin financial institutions’ client-facing services.  As the first payments system to be built in the U.S. since the birth of the internet, RTP is designed to support not only the transfer of funds but also the ability to both request payments and provide critical information about a payment to efficiently deal with back office reconciliation issues. RTP will support more seamless and efficient e-invoicing, bill pay, insurance claim payments, cash on delivery payments and more.  RTP also provides transparency and certainty with immediate confirmation notices that payments have been sent and received and instantaneously settled.  Confirmations provide businesses the ability to free up working capital by more precisely managing cash flow and make life less stressful for consumers on tight budgets.

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About The Clearing House.  The Clearing House is a banking association and payments company that is owned by the largest commercial banks and dates back to 1853.  The Clearing House Payments Company L.L.C. owns and operates core payments system infrastructure in the United States and is currently working to modernize that infrastructure with a new, ubiquitous, real-time payment system.  The Payments Company is the only private-sector ACH and wire operator in the United States, clearing and settling nearly $2 trillion in U.S. dollar payments each day, representing half of all commercial ACH and wire volume.  Its affiliate, The Clearing House Association L.L.C., is a nonpartisan organization that engages in research, analysis, advocacy and litigation focused on financial regulation that supports a safe, sound and competitive banking system.