Pub. 18 2021 Issue 2

14 William Schoch is President & CEO of Wespay, the nation’s oldest and one of the largest associations dedicated to helping members grow and improve their use of electronic payments. Appointed to this position in 2008, he is responsible for developing and implementing strategic initiatives to increase the association and provide maximum value to its 1000 members. In 2016, Bill was the incorporator of Wespay Advisors, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Wespay, which provides payments consulting and risk management services. He serves as a Director and the Secretary of theWespay Advisors Board. Before joiningWespay, Bill spent 11 years at Visa International serving in various product leadership positions. As a business manager, he was responsible for the Original Credit Transaction (OCT), nowmarketed in the U.S. as Visa Direct. Bill also served as the global product manager for Visa’s debit products and founded the Visa International Global Debit Forum, which showcases new opportunities and best practices in debit program management. Visa seconded him to serve as the executive director of GlobalPlatform, a standards development consortium launched by Visa to proliferate multi-application smart card technology. Prior to Visa, Bill spent eight years with Citibank in the treasury services division. He was responsible for developing, marketing and implementing various payments and collections solutions for Citibank’s corporate clients. He started his professional career at Nacha where he provided staff support to the rules and operations committee and was actively involved in developing business-to-business payment applications in the ACHNetwork. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Bill currently serves on the Boards of Wespay, Wespay Advisors (Board Secretary), and Nacha. He also serves on the Operations Committee of the U.S. Faster Payments Council and is the Immediate Past Chair of the Center for Payments. Recently he served on the Board of USA Technologies, Inc. and the Federal Reserve’s Faster Payments Task Force. Bill is amember of the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) and the California Society of Association Executives (CalSAE). Consumer and Business Value FinTechs’ innovation results in significant gains with consumers for person-to-person (P2P) payments, small value gifting, and settling-up of shared expenses. PayPal, Venmo and Square Cash were early solutions that are still widely used by consumers. The recent introduction of a bank-centric solution, Zelle, has been widely but not universally adopted by community institutions. Instant Payments, enabling immediate bank-to-bank transfers with the additional capability to confirm good funds receipt, are expected to be a viable and competitive solution for regulated financial institutions to deploy. On May 24, 2021, Bloomberg reported that Square is planning a suite of payment services aimed at the small to mid-sized business segment to compete with larger banks. This client segment has historically been key to the success of community banks and will require continued innovation to remain competitive in business banking and treasury services. Instant payments may provide a critical new tool in the community banking service portfolio. Business use cases for Instant Payments include just-in- time payables, consumer reimbursements and enhanced bill payment. The full benefit to businesses will require work to integrate these new process flows with in-house accounting and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems. Many businesses are considering the end goal to assist clients better and use service as a competitive differentiator. What’s Next? The Federal Reserve’s announcement of an Instant Payment solution has been an important motivational factor for many community banks. As the financial industry moves closer to the 2023 implementation of the FedNow service, we expect the volume of Instant Payments to turn up significantly. The Federal Reserve and The Clearing House are working with core systems providers and solution developers to integrate these capabilities into existing bank platforms. Determining the right time to participate in Instant Payments is a decision I expect most financial institutions will make in the short-term. To do so, having adequate information to make a knowledgeable decision will be critical. Business use cases for Instant Payments include just-in-time payables, consumer reimbursements and enhanced bill payment. The full benefit to businesses will require work to integrate these new process flows with in-house accounting and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems. n “INSTANT” PAYMENTS continued from page 13 And beginning the data gathering process as early as possible can aid community banks in evaluating their options and timing their solution availability to align with the needs of customers. Instant Payments are an ideal match with a bank’s overall digital strategy and can be merged for an impactful customer solution set. n