NACHA Issues Top 50 Lists of Originating and Receiving ACH FI's for 2006

"Financial institutions accounted for a 16.5 percent increase in ACH Network payments in 2006," said Elliott C. McEntee, President and Chief Executive Officer of NACHA. "Combined with previous years' record results, financial institutions' ACH volume has increased by 71 percent in just three years."

The financial institutions in the NACHA Top 50 of originating institutions accounted for 95.7 percent of all inter-bank ACH payments in 2006, up from 93.7 percent in 2005. The Top 5 institutions accounted for 59.1 percent of all ACH origination activity; the Top 10 accounted for 76.0 percent.

On the receiving side, the financial institutions in the NACHA Top 50 accounted for 59.2 percent of ACH payments, up from 52.8 percent in 2005. The Top 5 institutions accounted for 28.5 percent, and the Top 10 accounted for 38.1 percent.

In the Top 50 data, NACHA includes all ACH-formatted transactions that financial institutions sent to or received from an ACH Operator - an electronic clearing house among banks - or directly to or from another financial institution. ACH-formatted transactions remaining within a single institution - known as "on-us" payments - are excluded from the Top 50 results.

ACH payments include Direct Deposit of payroll, Social Security benefits and tax refunds, Direct Payment of consumer bills, bill payments by Internet and telephone, check conversion, business-to-business payments, and Federal tax withholdings. In 2006 there were nearly 16 billion ACH payments worth more than $33 trillion.