SWACHA is focused on being the key piece to electronic payment resources, expertise and education for financial institutions and companies. With SWACHA, members will have all the pieces required to stay on top of a continuously changing electronic payments environment.
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July 7, 2011
NACHA’s Payments Institute gears up on Sunday with opening activities including remarks by Rich Oliver of the Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, the Dean of TPI’s Board of Regents. SWACHA CEO Dennis Simmons will be teaching a class on Fundamentals of Risk Management and Cathy Jones, SWACHA VP of Finance will be attending. Simmons also serves on the TPI Board of Regents. Follow the activities on Twitter @swacha
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June 3, 2011
The Senate will begin consideration of a non-related bill, the Economic Development Reauthorization Act, to which Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) will offer an amendment to delay implementation of the Federal Reserve’s rulemaking on debit card interchange subject to a study by Federal regulators. The vote could take place as early as June 7. Stay tuned for more information.
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May 26, 2011
Seems like there is more going on at SWACHA than ever before. We’re in Albuquerque today doing a Financial Crimes Forum with the Albuquerque FBI. Our members have asked for more in depth training, so in response, we’re doing an Intermediate level ACH Boot Camp in conjunction with the Independent Bankers Association of Texas. Then back in Dallas for another Financial Crimes Forum on June 9th. All of these events wrapped around our ongoing schedule of fraud reduction committee meetings, training events, member visits and, of course, answering your payments questions on the Payments Answerline, an exclusive SWACHA member benefit.
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April 1, 2011
The SWACHA staff is loading up and heading to Austin on Saturday for Payments 2011 in Austin, Texas. Watch for Twitter feeds from the special events and workshops next week. Also, watch for details on our Pay It Green campaign coming Monday. Hope to see you in Austin.
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March 11, 2011
Do you know these names: Monilla, Sqwizz, Secure Vault Payments, Bling Nation? Why should you care? These are some new and not so new players in the electronic payments space with different means of access to the ACH network and other networks. We would encourage all of our members to learn more about these alternative payment mechanism. Watch for more vendor showcases about these and other new and interesting payment players.
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December 10, 2010
The Federal Reserve Board announced on Friday that a live webcast of its December 16 open meeting will be available on the Board’s website. At the meeting, which is scheduled to begin at 2:30 p.m. ET, 1:30 p.m. CT, the Board will discuss proposed rules governing debit card interchange fees and routing. More information at http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/press/other/20101210a.htm
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December 9, 2010
The Federal Reserve has released summary findings of its 2010 study of non-cash payments in the United States. The summary report is available at http://www.frbservices.org/files/communications/pdf/press/2010_payments_study.pdf
Join SWACHA on December 14th to hear the Federal Reserve discuss the study in more detail and analysis of the implications for the future of payments. More info on this informative event in the “Events” section of our web site.
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December 6, 2010
Over the last several years, SWACHA has made a concerted effort to decrease our paper consumption and look for ways to enhance our conservation efforts. Part of that effort is asking our vendors to accept electronic payments and asking our members to remit electronically or allow SWACHA to initiate debits to their accounts. Since we started that effort, we have achieved over 90% electronic on inbound payments and over 80% on outbound payments. Our goal is 100% on both sides of the equation and we continue to work toward that goal. We have also reduced our paper consumption and saved the association over $50,000 in direct cost as a result of these area. More info on the Pay It Green website @ www.payitgreen.org
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November 29, 2010
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation has issued its final guidance on overdraft programs (FIL 47-2010). The document can be found at: http://fdic.gov/news/news/financial/2010/fil10081b.pdf
Courtesy overdraft programs are NOT included in this guidance.
While the major focus of the guidance is directed toward counseling of customers who incur frequent overdrafts in a bank’s automated overdraft program, there are two major recommendations in the guidance that may potentially impact FDIC insured institutions. First, banks are being encouraged to allow their customers to opt out of automated overdraft programs for all types of debits, including checks and ACH. This is beyond the scope of the current opt-out requirements in Regulation E. Banks may want to evaluate this guidance for possible changes to their current opt-out procedures.
Second, banks are being encouraged to look at posting order, including a posting regimen that posts items by check serial number. This poses a potential problem for banks if their systems are not able to capture check serial numbers from converted checks that clear through the ACH network. Implementation of a check serial number posting order may involve system changes to effectively comply with the guidance.
SWACHA will be following these issues and will keep our members posted as this issue evolves
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November 18, 2010
A quick reminder to our members to mark your calendar for April 3-6, 2011. Payments 2011 will be held in Austin, TX and we invite you to come out and show off our Texas hospitality.
