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May 10, 2021 • Issue 21:05:01

Getting real about faster payments

Checkout.com, a merchant services provider specializing
in international payments for ecommerce businesses,
launched a product in April 2021 that allows disbursements
in near real-time (about 30 minutes) to about 4 billion cards
in 174 countries, using Visa Direct and Mastercard Send.
Payments can be sent to debit, credit, prepaid and small
business debit cards, a spokesman stated. MoneyGram, the
cryptocurrency platform Coinbase, and the online money
transfer service Wise are among those already using the
new service, which Checkout.com calls Payouts.

Visa Direct and Mastercard Send are platforms developed
by the card brands to support the "pushing" of money to FI-
issued debit cards. "Visa Direct is an important component
of making payouts as simple, quick and secure as consumer
payments are today," Ruben Salazar, senior vice president
By Patti Murphy and global head for Visa Direct, said in a statement released
by Checkout.com.
he transition to faster payment settlements is A 41 percent surge in real-time payments
revving up, and the once lofty goal of real-time
payments is becoming a reality for many. "It's GlobalData and ACI Worldwide recently analyzed real-
T real," said Steve Ledford, senior vice president time account-to-account payment volumes in 48 countries
for product strategy and development at The Clearing and determined that more than 70.3 billion were processed
House. A typical transaction over RTP, the real-time net- globally in 2020, a 41 percent surge over 2019. The combined
work built and operated by TCH, takes about three seconds value of these transactions rose 32.8 percent last year to $92
from initiation to receipt of good funds. trillion, the companies reported.

"When you do everything in real time, everything gets In the United States, there were 1.2 billion real-time
a lot simpler," Ledford said. "This has been a big deal payments last year, making it the ninth largest real-time
during [pandemic] lockdowns." Take merchant payouts, payment market, behind the likes of Brazil, India, China
for example. Leading payment processor Elavon, owned by and the United Kingdom.
U.S. Bank, an RTP participating bank, rides the RTP rails to
fund merchant accounts within hours of batch closeouts,
according to Steven Velasquez, head of partner business
development at Elavon.
Contributed articles inside by:
Samuel Murrant, lead payments analyst at the data John Tucker ............................................................................................24
analytics firm GlobalData, said the COVID-19 pandemic
whetted the appetites of many for real-time P2P payments. David Close .............................................................................................26
"[T]he pandemic has provided an opportunity to accelerate Jeff Fortney .............................................................................................28
the growth path for these instruments," Murrant said.
He expects demand to bleed over into ecommerce and TOC on page 3
eventually in-store transactions "once enough consumers
recognize real-time payment brands and the user base is
high enough to deliver sufficient value to merchants."

Continued on page 22