Andrew Haskell of BNY Mellon shares his favorite instant payments use case
8/10/2022
Andrew Haskell is the Director and Product Line Manager for Immediate Payments & Disbursements at BNY Mellon (Off-site). Headquartered in New York City, BNY Mellon is the world's largest custodian bank and securities services company.
According to Haskell, BNY Mellon joined the FedNow Pilot Program to provide corporate, fintech and financial institution clients access to the growing instant payments network on an accelerated timeline.
Q: Do you have any advice for organizations that are in the early planning stages for instant payments?
A: “First and foremost is education and awareness. Begin educating yourself by making sure that you understand all the advantages and nuances of real-time payments, which are unlike other methods of payment today. Once you are up to speed, share that information with your colleagues and your operations and technology partners. And last but not least, make your clients aware of these new services by promoting the features and benefits they can take advantage of.”
Q: What are the benefits of being an early adopter of the FedNow Service?
A: “Once available, early testing with the FedNow Service within your development life cycle helps to ensure your systems can meet the operational requirements and technical specifications of the service. By testing early, you become aware and familiar with instantaneous settlement. Additionally, you will ensure your message formatting and processing is accurate and up to date — even with ISO® 20022 standards, there may be differences with other methods of payment within your organization.”
Q: What are some of the barriers to instant payments adoption?
A: “One of the key barriers to instant payments adoption is awareness, by both consumers and businesses, in understanding these new services are available and the use cases they support, enhance or create. Instant payments have dramatically changed the payments paradigm because we have become accustomed to existing payment methods and their limitations. As a society, we have not yet realized or embraced the full potential of real-time payments.”
Q: What instant payments use cases are you most excited about?
A: “Request for payment messages to support consumer bill pay is the use case that is top of mind. We are all consumers, and we all need to pay bills; however, there is a lot of friction, delay and lack of control within that process. Paying a bill instantly or at a scheduled date and time and receiving instant acknowledgement of these payments — from a mobile device or computer — can make this chore much easier and less burdensome in our daily lives.”
Want to learn more about the real-world impact of instant payments? Read more FedNow Q&As here.