Latest / Leaders In Payments / Special Series: The Future of Modern Payments with Pat Antonacci, Chief Product Officer at The Clearing House | Episode 464

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Special Series: The Future of Modern Payments with Pat Antonacci, Chief Product Officer at The Clearing House | Episode 464 · Leaders In Payments

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Future of Modern Payments, a special podcast series sponsored by the Clearinghouse, the U.S.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: payments operator that provides safe, reliable, and efficient clearing and settlement networks.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: In this series, we'll explore how innovation, collaboration, and client insights are shaping the future of payments.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: From real-world use cases to forward-looking strategies and the evolving voice of the customer.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_02: Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Leaders in Payments Podcast.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_02: I'm your host, Greg Myers.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_02: Today's episode takes us inside one of the most critical infrastructures in the payments ecosystem.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_02: I'm joined by Pat Antonacci, the Chief Product Officer at the Clearinghouse, the organization operating three of the nation's most important payment rails.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_02: Pat brings a unique vantage point on how chips, EPN, and RTP are evolving, where use cases are emerging, and what the growth of electronic payments means for the broader economy.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_02: We'll explore how instant payments are reshaping behavior, whether rails are competing or complementing each other, and what opportunities and challenges lie ahead as we move into and through 2026.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_02: So, Pat, thank you so much for being here and welcome to the show.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for having me, Greg.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: Really happy to be here.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_02: So before we dive into the conversation, can you share a bit about your role at the Clearinghouse and the mission of the Clearinghouse?
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: So as you said, the Clearinghouse is private sector-owned core payments backbone and infrastructure that we have in the U.S.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: We facilitate safe, reliable, and efficient payments in multiple different rails, which we'll dive into.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: And we really drive as well industry collaboration in the ecosystem and the evolution of payments and how it's happening.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: As a chief product officer, I run, facilitate evolution of the products and services that we offer to the community to basically facilitate that clearing and settlement.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: We do around$520 trillion in clearing and settlement on an annual basis.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_02: Well, let's start with some simple definitions or descriptions of the three payment rails, what they are, who uses them, and maybe some high-level use cases.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_02: So let's start with CHIPS, your wire transfer system.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: So CHIPS, as you said, is our wire transfer system.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: And CHIPS really drives mostly cross-border.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: About 95% of the CHIPS traffic is coming from cross-border US dollar settlement, but really facilitating the high value payment and wire business.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: Chips has a real differentiator in that we have a proprietary algorithm that helps the community to manage their liquidity.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: So what that does is it facilitates to allow kind of a 30 to 1 liquidity management process.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: So that's allowing for every dollar you put into the system, you can facilitate sending$30 for every dollar you do in the system.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: So on an average basis, that's around$325 or so billion in daily savings that we have from a liquidity perspective that chips helps facilitate.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, how about EPN, which is your ACH solution?
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so EPN is really our work loss, right?
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: EPN and dealing with ACH.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: So ACH being predominantly batch and recurring payments, right?
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: Non-urgent payments, but we also continue to evolve that.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: ACH is now offered also same day.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: So you're doing same day, recurring, same day bulk payments or or those types of processing.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: We run around 62% of the volume that exists today is going through our rails either on the on the send or the receive side of the book of business.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, and finally RTP, which of course is what a lot of people know you as is the instant payment rail.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I think RTP is the newest and most exciting that people are looking at.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: We just turned eight years, eight years old on RTP back in November.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: It complements from the start of what we had at the clearinghouse over 170 years ago, which is actually another rail.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: So if you look from a check perspective and check clearing, and that's where we want to continue to see cannibalization of check and the reduction of check.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: But RTP is really that 24-7 instant rail that we're now offering.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: We have 98% of the US dollar real-time payments are happening on the RTP rails with the clearinghouse.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: We have around 320 or so, 320,000 or so businesses leveraging the RTP rails, and that equates to somewhere in the neighborhood of 7.5 million consumers that are facilitating instant payments.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not just instant of, you know, do I want to instantly move money out of my account?
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: But really more it's it's it's around precise payments.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: So when do I want to receive or send?
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: And it facilitates that in a 24-7, 365-day model, where today, in all the other rails, you're dealing just in the normal business hours that exist in the US market.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_02: Can you talk about the growth you're seeing for each one of these?
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe we'll start with ACH.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: So from an ACH perspective on EPN, year on year we're seeing about a 5% growth in volume and 8% growth in value.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: We're seeing more and more of those same-day initiatives to more batch processing, same day and intraday, so that you're facilitating that, not just the recurring payments, but things that people are looking to do in a same-day perspective.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm happy to also share some insights.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I have a cheat sheet here as I alluded to because the day after Thanksgiving, we hit some single-day highest peaks.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: So from an ACH perspective, from a value perspective, we hit a peak day, which is our historic peak day in a single day was$363 billion in clearing ACH on uh on the day after Thanksgiving.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: So continuing to see natural growth in that space, and you'll see we're seeing you know natural growth in all the sectors that we have there.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: When you look at chips, we've had a phenomenal year, uh 10% plus year-on-year growth in the wire space.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: We've seen significant enhancements from a technology perspective in chips moving to ISO 2022 along with RTP, and then supporting the move of Fed to ISO 2022 later in the year.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: But we're also seeing new participants.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: So we had one of our first new participants leveraging the CHIPS network in years, go live this year, and we're seeing four to five other players that are really going to look to start leveraging the CHIPS network next year.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: On the CHIPS network on the same day, the day after Thanksgiving, we had some peaks there as well.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: 1.2 million transactions happening on the CHIPS network, 12% increase versus the prior peak that we've had on the network.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: And we also had$2.9 trillion in value.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: And that peak was the first time reaching that type of uh breaking the value since 2008, which we obviously know that was the crisis in 2008.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: So a lot of peak activity happening around the crisis and the volatility of the market.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: But to hit that now in 2025 really shows a continued growth and trust in the safety, the security, the reliability, and the efficiencies that are brought with the CHIPS platform, along with obviously the liquidity savings that you get as part of that process.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: RTP, eight years old, so still a young child and still growing.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: So obviously, year on year, we're continuing to see growth there.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: We have around 1,100 customers plus now on RTP networks, spanning both our high-value big banks as well as you know, more smaller participants getting on the network, credit unions getting on the network.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of those go through technology providers rather than connecting directly to the network.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: But we're seeing there an average around 1.3 million transactions a day.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: And we're seeing peaks, we saw our peak this past week of 1.8 million transactions a day.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: So again, continuing to see that growth and those peaks.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: We're shooting to see when we're going to see that 2 million peak for that day.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: But as I said, we we have 98% of the traffic that's happening in the real-time instance space happening on the RTP network.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: We're continuing to see growth and opportunities with all the different use cases that are being offered for RTP.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: So as we see more and more players join, some of them are leveraging the existing use cases that were the phenomenon that were driving the value and the business case definition, but others are seeing new use cases evolve as part of that process.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: Where we see the biggest growth and the biggest volumes are really still more in the account to account, so more of the me to me space.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm looking to move money between two accounts that I have at different institutions or between my banking account, my brokerage account.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: So I want to make an investment right now because the market's moving, and I want to move that money from my bank account into my brokerage account, make that investment, or I've decided it's, you know, we're reaching the end of the year.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: I need to take some gains and some losses from my taxes.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: So I want to facilitate, you know, doing that brokerage trade.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I want to facilitate doing that at seven o'clock at night on a Sunday.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know, RTP then allows the facilitation of doing that on the weekend after hours to do those trades and move that money back into my bank account.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: But we're also seeing that from uh funding and defunding of wallets, whether it be to facilitate gaming, which we see a lot of, you know, facilitate gaming and other type of components on the weekend, or really just doing B2C and C2B business, right?
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: You have Uber drivers that want to get paid right after they've done their drive rather than waiting to uh a day end or month end as part of that and have that money available to them.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: You know, in the gig economy, we're seeing more and more of those opportunities for real-time payments.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: You're seeing from a business perspective, you know, I'm a truck driver and I want to make sure that I get paid after I've delivered the material so that I can cover my costs to continue doing business.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: So facilitating those real-time payments.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: And we also see it in the space around things like facilitating loans, loan payments, as well as initial payments if you want to do down payment on a house or down payment on a car or things like that.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so if you think of real world situations, I know my daughter just got a request for payment for her next semester in college, right?
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: So, how do you how do you facilitate that when you get that type of a request?
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: And she's reminded on the weekend it's due, you know, due on Monday.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: How do we get this done, Dad?
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: So you haven't done recurring ACH, you haven't set that up yet.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: So, and you can't wait till Monday to facilitate that.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: So, what do you do?
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: You could use a credit card, right?
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: Cards are still playing in the space real time.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: There's usually uh a 3% VIG on top of that that the organizations are going to charge you.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: So, okay, let me do a real-time payment.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: But maybe I don't have the money in my bank account.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: So I want to go sell something in my brokerage account, move that money real time, receive that into my bank account, and do that payment to that university.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, those are some real life situations that are happening from a consumer perspective as well as from a corporate and a merchant perspective that facilitate that real-time payment.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: So, seeing those use cases, seeing those real life experiences, and we're seeing that when those things start to happen from a real-time perspective, they only want that from a real-time perspective because that's that's what people expect in their day-to-day lives these days.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I appreciate you sharing those.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_02: One quick question, I want to double-click on something.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just curious.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_02: So, why would ACH and Wire on the day after Thanksgiving, Black Friday, why I mean, I would understand if you said credit card and debit card, you know, records were being set, but I'm a little can you explain why that happens with the these more Yeah, I mean, I think I think you're gonna always see those type of peaks in the US market or in any market after a holiday, right?
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: So because it's after a holiday, you're basically settling your US dollars almost two days of business that you wish facilitate the next day, especially from uh from a wire perspective where you're looking across border.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: And that's where the move to real-time payments and having that 24 by 7 opportunity allows you to do that, not waiting until the after the US holiday.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: We're also looking in 2027 probably to go live and really facilitating in 2026 a move to extended hours for wires for chips to allow it minimum Sundays and US holidays, so we can facilitate that more in a real time or or not blocked by the holiday or the Sunday hours to do that.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: But that's that's usually what happens after a holiday, a holiday that happens midweek at the same time.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we've seen those peaks for value in chips, which haven't happened since 2008.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, a phenomenon that doesn't really happen just purely because it was a it was a Thanksgiving Thursday.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, gotcha.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_02: So let's talk about cannibalization.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_02: So is the volume of RTP cannibalizing the other, you know, ACH or wire and and why or why not?
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I think what we've seen so far this year is is really just all the digital channels are growing.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: So I think I think it's just it's just a shift.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: We're seeing in the industry a reduction in check.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: So year on year it's you know, five to seven percent, a reduction in check and check image.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: I think you're definitely obviously seeing a cannibalization both in ACH and in RTP of the check business.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: We haven't seen a lot of cannibalization from the perspective of RTP taking things away necessarily from chips.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: We did see a bit from a Fed wire perspective that we believe came over to RTP as we raised the limits in RTP to 10 million, because once you're raising those limits, you're then starting to play in the high value payment space.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: And because you know we're not running the high value payment wire systems on a 24-7 basis, you're gonna be able to facilitate some of that from a real-time perspective as part of that process.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: But I believe we will start to see some more of that cannibalization where people understand that real-time payments are really more around when you need it and you want that finality of when you need it.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: So the challenges that you have today from an operational perspective, after the fact for a lot of the ACH payments, you can see where there would be a request for payment, which we're looking to see growth of request for payment next year, and then a response to that, which is doing that push payment with uh on on RTP, right?
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: And that facilitates not having to then wait for three days that something clears, or to know that it has cleared and hasn't had a problem, or to have fraud or perceived fraud because you forgot that you set up that recurring ACH payment.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: So right now we're not seeing that.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: We're seeing continued growth in all the rails, but I could see in the future that we would start to see some cannibalization in the space because you're really moving to that 24-7 opportunity where people want it either paid out of their account now to facilitate that they know it's final or paid into their account to be able to use the funds for specific purposes.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_02: You talked about the growth in electronic payments.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_02: What does that mean for the payments industry as a whole and for the economy?
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: I think all of this is driving the economy, right?
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: So whether it's coming cross-border or rather whether it's domestic settling in the US, right, that facilitates the continued growth in the economy and really making sure that payments are, I think, moving to the forefront, right?
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: Payments were very much in the back end.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: They were the operational thing that happened after the fact.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: And now you're seeing whether it's through partnerships or collaboration with fintechs that are providing more of that front-end service or e-commerce, et cetera, as part of that process.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: You're seeing that expectation for digital, right?
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: For these things happening at the point of sale and understanding that the cash is moving and it's being satisfied at the merchant level, as well as from the consumer level, to be able to facilitate that.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: So the continued growth and the continued evolution, really to more of that transparency and want for knowing finality, but having that in a safe, reliable, and efficient space is really making a difference and it's going to continue to grow and evolve and protect the US economy.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_02: Well, let's move on to a couple of questions about the future since it's sort of that time of year.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_02: What predictions do you have for 2026?
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_02: What opportunities do you see coming up in the payment space?
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: So in the payment space, I think you know there is opportunity for really moving that payments experience more to the front end.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: So I think, you know, we're we're continuing to see the trust factor from the banks, from the credit unions, that people are seeing the value of leveraging them and having them continue to play in this space.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: So I think the continued balancing and and growth of the FI, the banking sector, to be able to provide that service and it being a front-end service rather than a perceived back-end service, I think we'll continue to evolve in 2026.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: I'm expecting more growth in use cases, so more use cases that we'll find that may shift where the movement is happening, or just seeing a growth in those digital payments in all the sectors because of change in the way people operate as part of that.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: But I think as well, technology is going to continue to impact what we do, and regulation is going to continue to impact what we do, whether it be the Genius Act and opening some places or 1033, which may facilitate around open banking, but really other opportunities as you continue to see the adoption of APIs, as you continue to see things in the cloud, creating efficiencies and AI and opportunities with AI in that space.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, I'm sure you've had a lot of podcasts before and you'll have after on stablecoin and tokenized assets and where that's changing the market.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: But I think, you know, there's still a huge amount of opportunities in that space to continue to collaborate and innovate, leveraging the investment that's been made on the existing rails, right?
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: And understanding really what are those use cases that the new technologies or new rails that are that are being put out there, what are they actually solving, right?
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: Is it transparency?
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: Is it speed?
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: Is it finality?
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_01: And how do you find opportunities to adjust the rails that you have today or leverage the rails that you have today or remove the misconceptions of the rails that you have today, right?
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_01: To be able to facilitate addressing some of those problems today rather than it just being a technology looking for a problem to solve.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: You know, let's look at what the problem is we're trying to solve.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: So I think in 2026, we'll see that continued evolution, maybe from an overall payments perspective.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I have some thoughts as well of what we want to do in 2026 for at the clearinghouse, right?
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_02: We'll get to that in just a second.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_02: So one more question before we go there.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_02: As people who've been in payments, we always know that there are challenges in the industry.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_02: What do you feel like are the challenges that are on the horizon for the industry?
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, challenges I think tie back to some of those things on technology, right?
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, different players and what are they providing?
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: Is there the safety, security, reliability factor played in versus just speed to worry about, right?
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: So technology and misconceptions of the effort in some cases or the reality of the effort in some cases that need to be managed, because institutions and and consumers have different priorities and competing priorities, not between the two of them, but you know, as a consumer or or or as as an institution.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: So looking at where the technology spend goes to move and evolve, a lot of that goes to regulation or making sure you're at least in the space that's going to evolve from a technology perspective.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: So I think those are some of the challenges that are opportunities, but also create challenges.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: In I have so Many things I could possibly do, and where do I want to make the investments as part of that process?
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: You know, some of the challenges that you're going to continue to see linked with AI as well is around fraud.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_01: So concerns about fraud.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we've we've kind of recognized that faster payments doesn't necessarily mean faster fraud because there's controls that are being put in place and rule sets that are being built around that type of a model.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: But making sure that we understand what the risks are and the rails that you're operating on are to make sure that you understand really what those risks are.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: So I think I think some of those challenges are breaking down the barriers or misconception, understanding where you want to make your investments, right, for the future or for the present are really some of the challenges that you're going to face.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: And knowing and recognizing what are the right rails to do them on.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, if I have a recurring payment that is non-urgent and can go batch, you know, let's stick on ACH.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: That makes sense.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: But if I have something that I want to manage that that really adds value for having that instant, or I want to do it on the weekend or after hours, you know, there's that use case for RTP.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_02: Great.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_02: So finally, what are the emerging areas of focus for you and your team and for the clearinghouse overall?
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I think tied into those same topics, right?
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: How do we leverage AI and other technologies to really boost that efficiency and that security and reliability that we have at the core of what we do in operating that core payments infrastructure?
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: You know, continued growth in whether it be use cases or adoption or ubiquity as part of the process for RTP, it's still a baby, right?
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: And it's moving with, you know, the US market and US economy is very different than other global economies in that we already have ACH and we already have same-day ACH and you already have wire.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: So you have a lot of that, those things that other economies didn't have.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: So moving to real time, they needed to really do a huge leap.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: For us, it's it's that market movement, but that stickiness that's going to happen, I think, in the market.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: We've already seen a significant uptake, as I said, on RTP and growth.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: We're hitting already 72% of DDAs.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: You know, how do we get to further ubiquity?
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: How do we make sure that every corporate and consumer in the US has the ability to at minimum receive an instant payment so that they could facilitate being able to manage that type of process?
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: So that's really some things we want to continue to drive is that ubiquity and evolution of use cases to allow more players to see the value and kind of jump on the bandwagon of real-time payments.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: From a value perspective, we actually just hit$1.3 trillion in total value going over the RTP network this year.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: That's versus$250 million in 2024.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: So you're talking about a five-fold increase.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: Our hope is that that just continues to grow.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: And with the raising of the limit to 10 million, we did see a growth in the value that's going over the network.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: And as I alluded, you know, some of that also came from uh cannibalization of some things that we believe came over from Fed wire when we raised that, where you could have those high values.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, for us, it's it's really around how do we continue to evolve and grow and really collaborate and innovate with the community.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: So the key is really understanding the why.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_01: You know, what is it that the community is looking to evolve?
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_01: What are the challenges they're looking to overcome?
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: And how can we, as the provider of that core payment infrastructure, either facilitate the conversation, facilitate the ideation, and then deliver to those things that we think make sense to be delivered and participated in by the clearinghouse?
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: And where do we play in spaces like open banking and tokenization, which we've launched?
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_01: We'll be launching some components on fraud in the first quarter.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_01: We have some early adopters working on some things we're offering in in the fraud space on RTP.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: So definitely a lot of opportunities in 2026, but also keeping that workhorse of uh of ACH up and running and reliable.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_01: Same thing from uh from a CHIPS perspective as I alluded, getting us to the last stage that come the beginning of 2027.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_01: We can really launch that extended hours on uh from a wire perspective.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know, these are the type of things we're really gonna work on in 2026 at the clearinghouse from a product and service portfolio to help our customers to really reap the benefits that they have and to provide those services to their end customers.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_02: Sounds like an exciting year ahead for sure.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_02: So, Pat, this has been a great discussion so far.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_02: Any final thoughts as we wrap up the show?
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: I think, you know, you got to be in it to win it, I think is the key.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: So get in the space.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: I've been here with the clearinghouse just about five months now.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it's new and exciting for me in the role and working at the clearinghouse.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_01: I think we have great opportunities to collaborate in the marketplace with uh fintech, with with one another in this space to really see where we can continue to to leverage the value of the assets that we have to continue to grow and and and find opportunities for our common end clients and the clients of our clients.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_01: So really happy to have had this conversation, Greg.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: Appreciate it and uh look forward to uh seeing how things evolve in 2026.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_02: Well, Pat, thank you so much for being on the show today.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_02: I know your time is very valuable, so I really appreciate you being here.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Greg.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: Appreciate it.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_02: And to all you listeners out there, I thank you for your time as well.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_02: And until the next story.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to today's episode.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: To learn more about how the clearinghouse is powering the modern payments infrastructure of the future, please visit www.theclearinghouse.org.