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"With our technical expertise and Talie Baker, senior analyst at Aite Group, said instant funding options can be
experience navigating complex pay- a big draw for small businesses and micro-merchants who are often plagued
ment ecosystems, we are already put- by cash flow problems. A survey she recently conducted of small business
ting in the hours with our partners to owners who receive disbursements from card acquirers or lenders revealed
make this a reality," Piserchia wrote that "a significant portion" of these disbursements are made by check or ACH.
in a recent blog post. For example, The median cost to issue checks is between $2 and $4, she noted, adding that
he noted, "hundreds of thousands of while the ACH is cheaper, it requires extra steps to protect customers' sensitive
Uber and Lyft drivers" now get earn- financial information. From the recipient's point of view, the standard two- to
ings deposited in real time through three-day settlement cycle can make ACH payments less attractive, she said.
Mastercard Send.
Among business owners surveyed by Aite, 80 percent indicated they would
Visa Direct is similar to Mastercard be interested in instant funding from acquirers and lenders, and 80 percent of
Send. It provides near-real-time those businesses would be willing to pay a fee for faster payments, Baker said.
payments (within 30 minutes of ini- What's more, 85 percent indicated they would change acquiring relationships if
tiation) to traditional and prepaid another merchant acquirer offered instant funding of card receipts.
debit card accounts. Visa partnered
with Ingo Money on a service, Ingo "U.S. small businesses are alive, healthy and growing, making them a key
QuickConnect, an integration tool market segment for merchant acquirers and small-business lenders," Baker
that allows companies making dis- said. "Providing real-time merchant settlement and loan disbursements can
bursements to consumers or other drive differentiation in a crowded market and improve the overall customer
businesses to push those payments to experience." Paying for faster service isn't a novel concept. Consumers and
debit and prepaid debit cards using businesses already are accustomed to selecting the speed with which they ship
Visa Direct. packages, for example, Gunasena noted. He suggested a similar model could
eventually emerge for payments.
"We've heard time and again from Patti Murphy is senior editor at the Green Sheet and president of ProScribes Inc. Follow her on
customers that they need to deploy
a push-to-card payment solution but Twitter @GS_PayMaven.
are intimidated by the time and effort
required," said Drew Edwards, CEO
of Ingo Money. QuickConnect elimi-
nates those pain points, "and allows
a company to almost immediately
begin offering real-time payments
through Visa Direct, while retaining
the ability to easily expand the solu-
tion later to include payments to on-
line wallets like PayPal and Amazon,
or to even cash out at Moneygram lo-
cations," Edwards added.

Meanwhile, in early May 2019, Visa
acquired Earthport, a large, indepen-
dent ACH network with international
reach. "The acquisition of Earthport
unleashes the power of Visa by tak-
ing us 'beyond the card,' empowering
us to enable clients to make payments
through bank accounts around the
world," said Bill Sheley, head of global
push payments at Visa.
Faster merchant payments

Edwards said Ingo Money is focused
on helping clients make payments
to consumers and small businesses
faster, and that its instant funding
services are driving most of the
company's growth.

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