Businesses focus almost entirely on how much someone pays, how quickly that money is available to the company and how reliable the payment is when received. What gets lost in that thought process is how the money gets moved from the buyer to the seller. From the earliest days of barter and treasure ships loaded with gold coins, to the paper currency era and now the age of digital transactions, merchants have consistently sought out the most convenient method of moving money in the fastest way possible with the lowest amount of fees and friction. All of that has led to the dominance of ACH payments.
ACH stands for the Automated Clearing House, with The ACH Network as the center of commerce for the majority of transactions that take place in the world today. Folks may have heard ACH being referred to as “direct deposit” in the U.S., allowing money and information to move from one bank account to another via ACH credit and debit transactions; as recurring or one-time payments; for consumer or business-to-business transactions and more.
ACH is ideal for those wanting to receive payouts from a payment processor daily instead of being paid bi-weekly or monthly.
According to data provided by the National Automated Clearing House Association (NACHA), each year it moves more than 41 trillion dollars via 24 billion electronic financial transactions. Think about those numbers for a moment. Nearly every dollar of commerce moved in the U.S. each year is part of an ACH transaction at one point or another.
That massive footprint in the economy has led to an amazing amount of regulation and governmental scrutiny, which makes perfect sense considering the fact that Social Security and government benefits, electronic bill payments like utility bills as well as bank mortgage payments are often issued via ACH. The financial institutions that facilitate the broader economy simply cannot accept any chance of security flaws or foul play in the ACH system, and businesses benefit from that emphasis by being able to send money more efficiently and securely than any other method might allow.
ACH is ideal for those wanting to receive payouts from a payment processor daily instead of being paid bi-weekly or monthly, and for those who want to be able to pay affiliates, content providers, publishers and vendors with immediacy and the best possible level of reliability.
Important ACH Quick Facts
- Instead of using paper to carry necessary information, such as with checks, ACH transactions are transmitted electronically, allowing for faster processing times and much lower fees.
- ACH credit and ACH debit transactions allow the transfer of funds from one financial institution to another very quickly and often by the next day.
- The NACHA Operating Rules require that ACH credits settle in one to two business days and ACH debits settle on the next business day. Recent enhancements to the NACHA Operating Rules now also allow same-day settlement of many ACH transactions.
Mobius Pay has been processing ACH transactions on behalf of clients for nearly a decade (since 2010) and can provide all the expertise needed to transition a business into issuing payments and accepting money via the ACH banking system.
We support ACH payments from client customers, to earn a reputation for helping to keep the cash flow of clients as smooth as possible with daily settlements of large amounts that can quickly be re-invested into a business or accessed as profit.
In the real world, the pace money moves at can be crucially important, especially for clients that specialize in monetizing digital sectors. If someone is due a payment of $80,000 and it takes eight days or 17 days to reach a bank, that’s a week or two that a business doesn’t have money on hand to produce more content or acquire more traffic. It also means businesses need to offer affiliates less competitive payout options than competitors, who promise payments on a more immediate basis.
To access more information about the inner workings of ACH and the history of this important payment method, visit the official NACHA.org website. To move forward and free up money so it can arrive faster than ever before, Mobius Pay can offer assistance, quickly and easily assisting with setting up ACH credit and ACH debit accounts to optimize the speed of money, while eliminating unnecessary transaction fees and serving as a resource for any support questions that remain. Think of ACH as money racing at the digital speed of light, rather than sailing across the ocean slowly like an old chest full of gold doubloons.
Jonathan Corona has more than a decade of experience in the electronic payments processing industry. As MobiusPay’s VP of Compliance, Corona is primarily responsible for day-to-day operations as well as reviewing and advising merchants on a multitude of compliance standards set forth by the card associations. MobiusPay specializes in high-risk merchant accounts in the U.S., E.U. and Asia. Follow them @MobiusPay on Twitter.