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Fed payments study: ACH transfers outnumber checks
The Federal Reserve, in a new study on payments, found that "check payments continued their long-run decline" as the number of automated clearinghouse (ACH) debit transfers exceeded the number of check payments for the first time in 2018.
The 2019 Federal Reserve Payments Study, which analyzed the growth of payments from 2015-2018, found that:
- check volume declined 7.2 percent per year, while check value fell 4 percent per year;
- ACH debit transfers totaled 16.6 billion compared to 14.5 billion check payments in 2018;
- more than half of in-person general purpose card payments (i.e. debit and credit transactions) used chip authentication in 2018, compared to 2 percent in 2015;
- 26.3 billion in-person card payments used PIN authentication in 2018 compared to 16.9 billion in 2015; and
- remote payments volume increased 20.5 percent per year and value increased 14.4 percent per year.
The study includes a detailed statement on PIN and chip use; however, it does not address fraud or the frequency of unauthorized transactions, which the Fed's previous payments study published in 2016 did discuss. The new study indicates the Fed will publish a separate report with more information – potentially encompassing third-party fraud trends – in the future.
NAFCU works closely with the Fed on payments issues; the association served on both the Fed's Faster Payments and Secure Payments Task Forces. The association last month urged the Fed to expedite the development of its real-time gross settlement service, the FedNow Service.
In addition, in a recent NAFCU Compliance Blog post, NAFCU asked for credit unions' feedback on how they would like Regulation E error resolution responsibilities clarified as the association has received several questions from members on how to handle unauthorized use claims when a mobile payment app was used to facilitate a transaction.