Now in his eighth month as CEO of The Clearing House, David Watson noted to PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster that there’s significant promise — and a long road ahead — for real-time payments in the United States.
There are two dimensions to consider, he said, in tracking and scoring the readiness and the progress of faster payments. And, if one’s scoring those dimensions on a scale of one to 10, according to Watson.
“In terms of the capabilities we can offer, we’re at about a seven. In terms of the takeup, the use and the explosion of those payments, we’re at about a one or two,” he said. “It’s a long journey to change an infrastructure and a settlement model.”
TCH’s real-time payments platform, RTP® Network, has been around for almost six years. The platform reached its 500 million payment milestone, per a July announcement. That same month, the FedNow® Service went live. There are two real-time payment rails in existence, yet to be interoperable — that’s going to be a work in progress — but looking toward the same horizon.