Ovum: North American commercial banks invest heavily in real-time payments

The report “The rise of real-time payments in North America”, commissioned by Icon Solutions is based on responses from more than 7,000 CIOs and other senior IT decision makers.

The study shows that US and Canadian banks are catching up with their global peers when it comes to investing in payment infrastructure. What’s more, many of these banks go one step further, extending their funding arm to artificial intelligence and mobile banking based on real-time account data.

The report estimates that North American commercial bank IT spending will increase by USD 3.3 billion growing to USD17.1 billion per year by 2021. The figures are supported by the fact that half of US banks and 40% of Canadian banks plan to increase investment in their RTP systems on a year on year basis.

Furthermore, Spending on RTP has been named as top three priority by 25% of US institutions and 20% of Canadian institutions.

The report concludes that in the short term, banks are investing in real-time services ahead of market adoption to effectively compete for the business of their commercial clients. In the long term, RTP infrastructure will become the foundation for banks transitioning into an open banking environment.

Readers are encouraged to read the whole report, “The rise of real-time payments in North America” for a complete overview.