Pub. 17 2020 Issue 4

18 O V E R A C E N T U R Y : B U I L D I N G B E T T E R B A N K S — H E L P I N G N E W M E X I C O R E A L I Z E D R E A M S By William J. Schoch, President & CEO, WesPay LEVERAGING PAYMENTS TO GROW BUSINESS RELATIONSHIPS F or most of my professional career, pundits have predict- ed the end of cash and checks. We entered this new decade with both forms of payment alive but in gradual decline. It appeared that we would see only the slow, very gradual death of both paper payment options. And then COVID happened. More than eight months following the onset of COVID-19 in the United States, we see trends in consumer and business payment behaviors that help inform the current state of affairs and the future direction. Visa has reported debit card volumes in July and August 2020, 26% and 24% higher than the comparable 2019 periods. Nacha announced a 9% year over year increase in payment vol- ume during 3Q 2020. While these elec- tronic channels demonstrate growth, WesPay members tell me that check volumes are decreasing by double-dig- its. The Fed reported a 10.7% decline in commercial checks during the second quarter of this year. This is the largest percentage drop since 1994. So how do you plan for the future of your bank’s customers? Electronic pay- ment services and digital delivery chan- nels are not going away and will likely increase in importance to end-users. Expanding these capabilities will enable banks to meet customers where they are today and prepare for future demands. One near-term opportunity holds sig- nificant potential for bankers and their customers located in the Western U.S. Faster Direct Deposit and Di- rect Payment The ACH network was first deployed more than 40 years ago and has been a workhorse for recurring disbursements, payroll, and bill payments by providing next-day transaction settlement. A sig - nificant change in 2016 facilitated mon - ey movement the same day. However, the early processing schedules favored