adminThe Federal Reserve board has issued a request for comment regarding proposed changes to its current same-day automated clearinghouse (ACH) payments rules.
The Federal Reserve Banks propose to incorporate NACHA-The Electronic Payments Association’s recently adopted same-day ACH operating rules into Operating Circular 4, which governs Reserve Banks’ ACH service.
The Fed currently operates a same-day ACH service, titled FedACH SameDay Service, which institutions can opt in or opt out of on a monthly basis.
NACHA’s rule would enable originating depository financial institutions (ODFIs) that desire same-day ACH processing the option to send same-day transactions to accounts at any receiving depository financial institutions (RDFIs).
NACHA’s rule would require all RDFIs to participate and would assess an interbank fee to ODFIs of 5.2 cents per transaction. CUNA supports this fee, since it will help credit unions and other small RDFIs offset the costs incurred by processing same-day ACH transactions.
In its comment letter to NACHA sent in February, the Fed expressed concerns about the interbank fee, and contrary to CUNA’s assertion, believes the fee should be as low as possible.
CUNA maintains that the higher the fee paid by ODFIs, the better chance smaller RDFIs have at recovering some costs involved with the process.
Comments are due to the Fed by July 2.
