U.S. Central Selects eFunds ACH Processing Services

U.S. Central has selected eFunds Automated Clearing House Processing System (ACHPS) to support its growing ACH business. eFunds ACHPS solution will allow U.S. Central to streamline back-office operations and effectively support continued growth in payment volumes generated by its member corporate credit unions. As a member-owned cooperative, U.S. Central is Americas only wholesale depository institution providing investment, liquidity, payment, lending and cash management services to 29 corporate credit unions, who, in turn, provide those and other services to the nations nearly 10,000 credit unions. While terms of the agreement were not disclosed, implementation began in February upon contract signing and the first transaction is scheduled to go live in the latter half of 2004. eFunds ACHPS solution is designed to offer customers scalable processing capacity, extensive risk controls and robust functionality without costly infrastructure investments or expensive software upgrades. In addition, customers do not need to devote resources to managing an in-house system, freeing up valuable staff time to focus on core business opportunities. As ACH network volumes continue to rise, so do the frequency of rule changes by governing bodies (NACHA, The Electronic Payments Association), placing potentially heavy resource and cost burdens on network participants to keep pace with system maintenance and compliance regulations. Other drivers impacting ACH network participants to consider an outsourced solution include the benefits of productivity efficiencies that allow in-house resources to be redeployed to core business activities, and the change of network use from recurring to non-recurring payments, making peaks and valleys in transaction volumes difficult and expensive to support.