These changes will amend the Nacha Operating Rules (Rules) to address a variety of minor topics related to Meaningful Modernization, an ACH Operator edit and expiration of stop payments on non-consumer accounts.

Your sales are humming along, bills and invoices are being sent to customers, and the payments are flowing back to your company—and there are a lot of payments. That’s good news. But, that’s also where Goofus processes may lurk!

As the pandemic winds down, both consumers and merchants are beginning  to figure out what the “new normal” will be. This is especially true for the way they interact with money. People are paying at the register with their phones, and merchants are accepting alternative payment methods.

Nacha’s Risk Management Advisory Group has been evaluating potential risk increases and decreases due to Same Day ACH. It has consistently found no justification to fears that Same Day ACH would introduce massive amounts of risk.

The Nacha Risk Management Advisory Group (RMAG) held a series of discussions on the topic of Third-Party Senders (TPSs) and the ODFIs that process for them. RMAG developed sound business practices for ODFIs for both the onboarding of new TPS clients and the ongoing monitoring of existing TPS clients.

“What is the difference between EFT, ACH and EDI?” We often get asked this question from business financial teams - even from seasoned financial pros. The quick answer is that all ACH (Automated Clearing House) payments are EFTs (Electronic Funds Transfers), but not all EFT payments are ACH. And EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) is a data format, not a payment.

Access to the Rules & Guidelines helps to identify new opportunities to leverage the ACH Network to meet customer’s needs, while maintaining a clear understanding of network requirements.

Test and refine your knowledge anytime, anywhere you take your mobile device! This self-study tool is great for APRP exam preparation. Choose to study one focus area at a time or all areas together.

When a transaction involves the use of a payment intermediary (e.g., a Third-Party Service Provider that performs some aspect of payment processing on behalf of a client), those ACH roles may not always be easily identifiable. That’s why Nacha developed and recently updated the Third-Party Sender Identification Tool.

ACH payments provide clear benefits compared to check payments. If your company currently does not send ACH payments to vendors/suppliers, you can contact your bank for recommendations on how to get started with sending ACH payments. 

Nacha has approved Nacha Certified status for Bill.com, a leading cloud-based software platform which facilitates ACH payments. 

This rule will continue to expand the capabilities of Same Day ACH. Increasing the Same Day ACH dollar limit to $1 million per payment is expected to improve Same Day ACH use cases, and contribute to additional adoption.

The Limitation on Warranty Claims limits the length of time in which an RDFI will be permitted to make a claim against the ODFI’s authorization warranty. The rule will become effective June 30, 2021.

By Richard Oliver & George Warfel Jr.

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These Rules intend to improve and simplify the ACH user-experience by: Facilitating the adoption of new technologies and channels for the authorization and initiation of ACH payments; Reducing barriers to use of the ACH; Providing clarity and increasing consistency around certain ACH authorization processes; and Reducing certain administrative burdens related to ACH authorizations

There are banks that look at Third-Party Senders and—right or wrong—have their doubts. Wayne Gonzales gets it. 

You may never have heard of the Nacha Operating Rules but there’s almost certainly a rule or two (or three, or four) that impacts your life.

The existing ACH Security Framework Rule -- including its data protection requirements -- will be supplemented to explicitly require large, non-FI Originators, Third-Party Service Providers and Third-Party Senders to protect deposit account information by rendering it unreadable when it is stored electronically.