Dive Brief:

• Nacha, the organization that oversees the ACH Network, reported Tuesday that the third-quarter volume of same-day ACH payments increased 20% over the year-earlier quarter to 212 million. The value of those payments jumped 27.1%, to $608 billion, according to Nacha's press release.
• The ACH Network volume of business-to-business payments for the third quarter rose 9.6% over 2022 to 1.7 billion payments, the Tuesday release said. The dollar value for B2B payments in the third quarter increased 1.4%, to $13.5 billion, according to a Nacha spokesperson.
• Overall third-quarter volume on the ACH Network jumped 3% year-over-year to 7.8 billion payments, as the value of those payments increased 2.6% to $19.7 trillion, the press release said.

Dive Insight:

For the first three quarters of this year, same-day ACH payments climbed 16%, to 597.6 million payments, over the same period last year, with the value of that volume rising 42.4% to $1.78 trillion, according to the Nacha announcement.

Alongside overall same-day ACH payments, healthcare claim payments have also continued to rise this year. In its Q3 report, Nacha said healthcare claim payments rose 5.8% to 122 million in payments. In February, the organization reported that healthcare claim payments rose 6.1% in volume last year. That growth continued in the first quarter of this year when the segment increased 5.1%, Nacha said in April.

Direct deposits also appear to be on the rise following a previous decline. The category had a 2% bump in Q3 to 2 billion payments, Nacha said in its press release. Last year, direct deposits decreased 4.1%, but they crept up 5.1% in the first quarter of this year. 

Overall, same-day ACH payments appear to be steadily rising this year. First-quarter same-day ACH payments jumped 20.7% in volume over 2022 to 186.2 million and the value of those payments nearly doubled for that quarter to $565.3 billion, Nacha said earlier this year.

Nacha has made changes to meet growing demand from financial firms and companies. The organization announced in March 2022 that it would increase its same-day payment limit from $100,000 to $1 million. Later that year, the Federal Reserve and The Clearing House unveiled “late night” ACH services, allowing financial firms to receive ACH files by 11:30 p.m. ET on business days.

Though same-day ACH payment payments continue to grow overall and in business-to-business transactions, it remains to be seen whether the real-time payment service FedNow will become a competing service. During a March gathering of payroll professionals, Nacha CEO Jane Larimer acknowledged FedNow could be beneficial for high-priority transactions, but noted the ACH Network is a reliable system for typical payroll operations.

“The ease and convenience of same-day ACH has been embraced by the businesses and other organizations that use ACH,” Larimer said in the Tuesday release. “The one million dollar limit and the three settlement times each business day make same-day ACH a great choice for faster payments.”