ACH Transactions Growing at Pace Not Seen Since 2008

The number of ACH debit and credit transactions during the second quarter grew at one of the highest rates since 2008, and same-day ACH payments volume spiked 243% year over year, according to new data from NACHA — The Electronic Payments Association.

More than 3.3 billion ACH debit and almost 2.4 billion ACH credit transactions were made in the quarter, marking a 6.2% increase compared to the second quarter of 2017. Direct deposit for payroll and other consumer disbursements rose 4.2% to 1.7 billion, internet transactions spiked 14.3% to 1.5 billion, and business-to-business transactions were up 8.6% to 889 million. There were also more than 29 million person-to-person transactions during the quarter, NACHA said.

“The strong quarterly performance demonstrates that ACH payments, including same-day ACH transactions, are being embraced by businesses and consumers alike,” the company said.

The volume of same-day ACH transactions hit 41 million during the quarter, representing a 243% increase from the second quarter of 2017. That included 21 million credit and nearly 20 million debit transactions, NACHA said.

“Compared to the same time period in 2017, when there were only credit payments available, there were 11.9 million transactions (same-day ACH credits have been available since September 2016 and same-day ACH debits went live in September 2017),” it noted.

In March, the third and final phase in the transition to same-day ACH happened, adding two more clearing windows through which to submit same-day ACH payments and making both debits and credits eligible for same-day processing.

A month earlier, in April, NACHA — The Electronic Payments Association and the Interactive Financial eXchange (IFX) Forum announced plans to combine forces in a deal they said will speed up and strengthen the development of standardized application programming interfaces (APIs) in the financial services industry. That deal closed in April.