For Kunal Das, The Clearing House’s RTP® network is a launching pad for greater connectivity and convenience for real people, whether individual customers or people who run businesses.

At TCH’s inaugural RTP Network Buildathon, more than a dozen development teams gathered to create real-world solutions based on the TCH‘s faster payments system. For the winner of the Buildathon’s “Visionary Award,” this meant embracing the Internet of Things (IoT) where different devices can connect and exchange data to reduce the burdens of everyday life.

For the competition, Chief Enterprise Architect at South State Bank Kunal Das entered “Plutus,” which allows IoT-enabled devices to connect in order to “automatically request payments and facilitate “connected commerce” via the RTP network’s payment rails,” according to a South State Bank statement.

Internet of Things applications and systems such as TCH’s RTP network are just the start for even smarter solutions, according to Das. And the time is right, he says, pointing to industry research.

“According to Gartner, by 2020, IoT devices will outnumber humans 4:1. According to McKinsey’s research, 127 devices come online every minute,” said Das. “With these sort of statistics and the large amount of data being generated by IoT devices, I think there is an incredibly compelling use case for solutions that leverage the RTP network like Plutus.”

He adds, “There is nothing that can match the scale of IoT devices.”

Follow Kunal das on Twitter at @qnal.

Read the entire South State Bank press announcement here.

Read the list of RTP Network Buildathon finalists here.