Dive Brief:

• The ACH Network processed 7.7 billion automated clearing house payments worth about $19.7 trillion in the first quarter, with both of those metrics up 6.4% over the same period last year, Nacha announced Monday.
• About 186.2 million of those transactions, valued at $565.3 billion, were made via same-day ACH. That specific service experienced a 20.7% increase in volume and a 94.7% spike in value over the same quarter last year, said Nacha, which governs the automated payments system.
• “Same Day ACH is a key component of how the modern ACH Network is helping meet the demand for faster payments,” Nacha President and CEO Jane Larimer said in the statement. “These results clearly show the payments community’s embrace of Same Day ACH. Nacha, along with other ACH Network participants, will continue work to enhance it.”

Dive Insight:

Future enhancements to same-day ACH might include an additional settlement time later in the day. As Nacha adapts to an environment prizing faster and more frequent payments, it could be beneficial to add another settlement window later in the day to accommodate the Pacific and Mountain time zones, Larimer said during a conference appearance last month. The last settlement window for the West Coast currently closes at 3 p.m.

Still, another settlement time would only be possible if the National Settlement Service, which is operated by the Federal Reserve banks, offers longer hours, Larimer said last month. Nacha, formerly known as the National Automated Clearing House Association, works alongside the ACH operators, which are the Federal Reserve and The Clearing House.

With more industries relying on ACH payment services, Nacha, The Clearing House and the Federal Reserve introduced late-night ACH services last November, which allows businesses to send payments for processing by 11:30 p.m. ET.

In the first quarter, the ACH Network’s business-to-business payments volume rose 11.4% to about 1.6 billion, Nacha said. The healthcare industry saw a 10.1% increase in volume, to 116 million payments, according to Nacha. About 76.3 million peer-to-peer payments were processed during the first quarter, up 13.3% from last year.

The ACH Network processed 2.1 billion in direct deposit payments in the first quarter, a 5.1% increase, bouncing back after a decline a year earlier as federal stimulus payments ended.

Claim payments to healthcare providers grew 5.1% for the first quarter to about 2.1 billion payments. Still, the organization said it is focusing on the dental industry, which lags behind peers in the medical field in receiving claim payments via ACH.

Last year, the ACH Network processed 30 billion payments valued at $76.7 trillion. The organization saw direct deposits fall by 4.1% last year, but healthcare claim payments rose by 6.1% compared to 2021.