Synovus has announced an agreement with the University of Georgia to launch Secure Vault Payments (SVP) as a new tuition payment option. Synovus said that in 2008 it "became the first bank in the U.S. to offer customers this fast, safe and easy option for making payments online." READ MORE

Glenbrook's Russ Jones recently met with Ken Myles of NACHA to get an update on NACHA's Secure Vault Payments initiative. Read on for Russ' insights and reactions to what he learned. READ MORE

Glenbrook’s Carol Coye Benson interviewed Steve Ellis, NACHA Chairman, recently about the use of ACH to access consumer checking accounts and NACHA's Secure Vault Payments initiative. Read on for her full report. READ MORE

Glenbrook's Russ Jones will be on hand at this year's Direct Response Forum (DRF) to lead a session on August 12th entitled "What We're Watching in Emerging Payments". Looking beyond the current generation of payment alternatives, Russ will be discussing TrialPay, eBillme, Secure Vault Payments, Amazon Payments, RevolutionCard, eLayaway, PaidByCash, and the Green Dot MoneyPak.

Russ will also be participating in a round table discussion on best practices in recurring payments on August 13th. The DRF 2008 conference is being held in San Diego. The full agenda is available online. If you're going to be at the conference, - he'd love to meet you!

NACHA has announced that Fidelity National Information Services (FIS) will offer NACHA’s Secure Vault Payments solution to its clients. FIS will offer Secure Vault Payments to current clients as well as financial institutions without an existing relationship with FIS. READ MORE

Apple Vacations has announced that it will add the Secure Vault Payments (SVP) as an additional payment option for online customers. The Automated Clearing House (ACH)-based Internet payments network allows consumers to conduct e-commerce and bill payment transactions without sharing personal account information. SVP will be available to Apple Vacations' customers this summer. READ MORE

NACHA has announced that Secure Vault Payments is now a live alternative payment option. The ACH-based Internet payments network allows consumers to conduct e-commerce and bill payment transactions without sharing personal account information. READ MORE

Metavante has announced that it will process and settle transactions for NACHA’s Secure Vault Payments, an automated clearing house (ACH)-based Internet payments system that allows consumers to conduct e-commerce and bill payment transactions without sharing personal or account information online.

Glenbrook's Carol Coye Benson recently spoke with Elliott McEntee, President and CEO of NACHA about two current payment industry issues - NACHA's reaction to "de-coupled debits" and the progress of the Secure Vault Payments program. She's filed this report on the discussion.

NACHA has announced the fee structure for its online payments pilot, Secure Vault Payments (SVP). According to NACHA, "the pilot, scheduled to go live the first quarter of 2008, will enable consumers to initiate private and secure payments for purchases and bill payments through their financial institutions' online banking platforms. During the pilot, participating financial institutions will authenticate consumers and provide real-time payment authorizations for ACH Network transactions to the participating online businesses."

According to our calculations, on a $50 purchase, the fees would be: 1) an authorization fee of $0.675 paid from the merchant's bank to the consumer's bank, a $0.06 switch fee paid by the merchant's bank, another $0.06 switch fee paid by the consumer's bank, a $0.01 network fee paid to NACHA by the merchant's bank and another $0.01 network fee paid to NACHA by the consumer's bank. The total of all the fees here - not including any mark-up by the merchant's bank to the merchant - would be $0.815 or about 1.63% of the purchase amount. Read on for the details of NACHA's announcement.

Update - September 18, 2007: We spoke with NACHA this morning about our calculations above. While the total fees collected from all parties involved on a $50 transaction are the $0.815 shown above, the fees charged to merchants for a Secure Vault Payments transaction would be the authorization fee of $0.675 paid by the merchant's bank, plus the $0.06 switch fee paid by the merchant's bank, plus the $0.01 network fee to NACHA paid by the merchant's bank. Those merchant-side fees total $0.745 on a $50 purchase or about 1.49% of the purchase amount. The merchant's bank will, of course, need to charge additional processing fees to the merchant for providing the Secure Vault Payments service which would be over and above those "wholesale" fees.

NACHA's credit push initiative has a new name - Secure Vault Payments - and web site. "This model allows the consumer to select an online payment option that will "redirect" them to their trusted bank site that will authenticate them in a multi-factor environment and allow their information to remain private while sending a real-time authorization and a confirmation of payment (ACH credit) to the business." And for banks, "it allows financial institutions to generate additional direct revenue from the online banking channel, offsetting the costs of supporting the channel, which continue to increase – particularly in the areas of authentication and security." For financial institutions, a comprehensive set of technical information is available for download along with a series of FAQs and focus group results from consumers and merchants.