FIS getting real about payments

In what is being billed as a "game changer and global first," the financial technology company FIS took the wraps off a cloud-based, software-as-a-service platform that supports account-to-account transactions for businesses, consumers and governments using real-time payment networks.

RealNet, as the platform is called, aims to make it easier for organizations across industries to send and receive payments, whether they are engaging with consumers, businesses or employees. The platform will function as a "network of networks" utilizing a range of domestic and cross-border payment rails to simplify and expedite the processing, clearing and settlement of payments, FIS said.

RealNet employs a smart-routing decision engine, which allows it to identify the fastest, most cost-efficient option for any transaction in real-time—for example, ACH, same-day ACH, wire transfer or the RTP network—and automates the process end-to-end.

Real-Net will use application programming interfaces to integrate with other FIS core banking and payment solutions, the company said in a statement. The new platform is available in the United States now. Next up will be the United Kingdom and Europe, with additional markets expected later in 2021, FIS said. Headquartered in Jacksonville, Fla., FIS is the parent company of leading acquirer Worldpay.

A 'game changer'

Real-time payments are a holy grail of sorts that gained traction when much of the world went into lockdown last year because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"The pandemic has cast the spotlight on the importance of digital payments and robust payment infrastructures, condensing a decade of anticipated innovation into one year and creating human behavior changes that will not reverse as we emerge from the crisis," said Jeremy Wilmot, chief product officer at ACI Worldwide.

To date, much of the real-time payments activity has been focused on person-to-person mobile wallet transactions over networks like Zelle and Venmo. A report published recently by ACI and GlobalData revealed real-time payment transactions, globally, surged 41 percent last year, totaling in excess of 70.3 billion. In the United States, 1.2 billion real-time payments were made last year.

The ACI-GlobalData report projected a compound annual growth rate of 23.6 percent for real-time payments from 2020 to 2025.

"Our vision for RealNet is to help power a real-time economy, regardless of industry, whether business-to-business, business-to-consumer, consumer-to-business, government-to-consumer or anything in-between," said Raja Gopalakrishnan, global head of real-time payments at FIS. "Not only will the RealNet platform speed up payments by helping to enable real-time money movement, but it will also do so in a way that is seamless, reliable and secure for organizations around the globe."

Gareth Lodge, senior analyst at Celent, pointed out that the future of payments in increasingly real-time, but we have yet to see it all working together seamlessly. "RealNet's network ability to accelerate this change across markets and industries is really exciting," he said. "The fact that RealNet will also deliver any payment type through any payment rail, anywhere, is likely to be a game changer and global first."

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