NACHA Begins Assessments, Annual Fees

"Over the long term, the assessment of ACH Network administration fees will benefit all users of the Network through more robust network administration programs, such as risk management, quality improvements and rules enforcement," said Elliott C. McEntee, President and CEO of NACHA. "Administration fees will ensure that resources are available to support the growth of the ACH Network."

Through transaction fees, all financial institutions will contribute to risk management, rules enforcement, quality and other ACH Network administration programs in direct proportion to their use of the Network. Through an annual fee, all financial institutions that use the ACH Network will contribute a minimum amount to the maintenance of the NACHA Operating Rules.

For many financial institutions, the Network administration fees will be relatively small. For example, a financial institution with a total annual ACH volume of 580,000 transactions would pay a total of only $100 per year. A financial institution would have to send and receive 9,580,000 ACH transactions annually to result in Network administration fees of $1,000 per year.

Network administration fees will support NACHA's ACH Network administration services, which will be provided "at-cost" to the industry. These services include:

1. Maintenance and enforcement of the NACHA Operating Rules;
2. ACH Network risk management programs and alert services;
3. ACH Network quality improvements;
4. Development of rules for new ACH applications;
5. ACH Network communications, research, and statistics; and,
6. Administration of the National ACH Marketing Campaign.

Transaction fees will be assessed on all originated and received ACH credits and debits, including non-dollar transactions. All commercial inter-bank and Federal government ACH transactions are subject to the fee, but not "on-us" transactions that stay within a single financial institution. The annual fee will be assessed on a monthly basis at $3.50 per month. While the fee levels are set for 2007, the amount of the ACH Network administration fees will be approved annually by NACHA's Board of Directors and published in the Schedule of Fees section of the annual ACH rulebook.

The ACH Operators - the Federal Reserve and the Electronic Payments Network - will bill and collect the fees on behalf of NACHA via their monthly billing statements to financial institutions. Financial institutions will see the fees assessed for the first time on their January 2007 invoices. The fees will appear as "NACHA Admin Network Fee/entry" and "NACHA Admin Network Fee/month", but are separate and distinct from ACH Operator charges. The fees are also separate and distinct from membership dues in NACHA or a Regional Payments Association.

Additional information on Network Administration Fees is available on NACHA's web site at http://www.nacha.org/ACH_Rules/ach_rules.htm.