Sprig, CO-OP Financial Services' real time account-to-account money transfer service, is poised to more than double its pool of users at the end of June and become a true person-to-person money transfer service.
Currently, Sprig is a part of the CUSO's shared branching network and allows 20 million members to transfer money between accounts they and others have at participating institutions in real time.
But CO-OP has an agreement in place with payment provider FIS that will enable its users to also use FIS' PayNet network to transfer money in real time, person to person, among 48 million PayNet users, according to a CO-OP Financial Services EVP Caroline Willard.
The new service should kick off at the end of June, Willard said, and the final number of users is still conditional on all the details being settled.
"The final contracts still need to be signed, but 48 million end users is the expectation," Willard said, adding that the 48 million users may not be completely enrolled until the end of the 2014.
Willard added the 48 million would include consumers from outside the credit union network, but would not yet include the ability to use the network to pay merchants.
"We are not closing the door on that idea," Willard said. "But right now we aren't really interested in doing anything that could cannibalize credit union interchange," Willard said. She further explained that allowing merchants to be paid through Sprig could forestall consumers from using their credit union-issued debit or credit cards.
But, she emphasized the PayNet service would allow person-to-person real time transfer, and that it would allow participating users to transfer money to other consumers at participating institutions.
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