Payments are
humming across a variety of rails to countless businesses and consumers at any
given moment in the U.S. With so many available payment methods, end users, and
use cases, the payments landscape can be a tangled web of rules and
regulations.

It also can be a
challenge for industry stakeholders to navigate the often complicated payments
world, prompting calls for a simplified and automated process for exchanging
payment-related information. Financial institutions of all sizes and
specialties, as well as payment processors, emerging fintechs, and many others would
benefit from such a process.

With a large
cross-section of the payments world in need of a solution, Nacha has responded with
Phixius,
an online platform that brings together technology, rules, and participants to
streamline and modernize how payment information is exchanged. Nacha plans to
make Phixius available to early adopter organizations in May 2020.

To learn more
about Phixius, PaymentsJournal sat down with George Throckmorton, Nacha’s managing
director of Strategic Initiatives & Network Development.

During the
conversation, Throckmorton spoke about the current issues with exchanging
payment information, how Phixius addresses these pain points, and why Nacha is
well positioned to lead these modernization efforts.

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A solution to a problem 10 years in the
making

The payments
industry has contended with an inefficient means of exchanging payment-related
information for at least a decade. Yet, the problems do not lie in “making” the
payments.

“It’s not just about
the routing of payments. I think that’s a misconception,” said Throckmorton. “When
we talk about payment-related information, it’s about the authenticity and
richness of that information.” Bundled into the authenticity of the data is a
range of important aspects of making a payment, including invoicing, compliance
data, and payment remittance.

One central
issue connecting all of these aspects is a lack of automation. “When payment
information is exchanged today, it’s very manually intensive,” said
Throckmorton. Companies often rely on phone calls, emails, and even the U.S.
Postal Service to exchange the relevant information. These methods are slow, prone
to human error, and costly.