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"Circle APIs offer major payment rails like cards, wires and blockchain transfers - offering multiple ways for users to transfer money and transact with USDC, the world's fastest growing dollar stablecoin. Today, Circle is adding ACH as a payment rail, with comprehensive support available across both Payments and Payouts products. Customers can enable their users to make and receive payments using ACH, with seamless conversions into and out of USDC."

32% of Transferwise cross-border payments now take less than 20 seconds, and half of all payments arrive within an hour. They significantly sped up Automated Clearing House (ACH) payments from the U.S. by starting ACH transfers immediately after user authorisation, and now 17% of ACH transfers from the U.S. are instant. They also completed an integration with the Malaysiaon Financial Process Exchange which speeds up payments from Malaysia. They also integrated directly with Magyar Nemzeti Bank, the second such central bank integration. The average price for using TransferWise decreased this quarter from 0.75% to 0.74%.

"The ECB's Governing Council has taken significant steps to support the full deployment of instant payments across the euro area, in line with objectives shared with the European Commission. Pan-European instant payments can be ensured by the end of 2021. All Payment Service Providers (PSPs) which have adhered to the SCT Inst scheme and are reachable in TARGET2 should also become reachable in a TIPS central bank money liquidity account, either as a participant or as reachable party (i.e. through the account of another PSP which is a participant). At the same time, all Automated Clearing Houses (ACHs) offering instant payment services should migrate their technical accounts from TARGET2 to TIPS. The Eurosystem will discuss with ACHs and PSPs whether a migration window is needed for this purpose. The ultimate goal is to enable European citizens to make electronic payments in euro from and to any country in real time, both in physical shops and online."

"Stablecoin issuer Circle said that it is partnering with financial data aggregator Plaid to make it easier for consumers to move their money out of the bank and into Circle's USDC. Like its partnership with Visa, working with Plaid is another way for Circle to become more deeply integrated with networks that allow users to move faster between fiat and dollar-backed crypto tokens via the Automated Clearing House (ACH) network."

The Reserve Bank of Vanuatu launched a new national digital payment platform, VANKLIA, to strengthen its digital economy and promote financial inclusion. The VANKLIA system has two main components: a Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) component which carries out high value and high priority payments and settlement in real time; and an Automated Clearing House (ACH) component which facilitates the clearing of low value, high volume electronic fund transfers for batch payments such as salary payments and instant fund transfers for retail payments.

"CarbonUSD, or CUSD for short, is a compliant fiat-backed stablecoin where users can deposit and withdrawal real USD. To mint new CUSD tokens, users can make fiat deposits via ACH or Wire Transfer with our financial partner, Nevada-based Prime Trust. Frequent third-party attestations by leading auditor Cohen & Co. verify publicly that each token is backed 1-to-1 by escrowed funds in FDIC-insured accounts with Prime Trust's banking partners."

The Bank of Jamaica estimates that in excess of 20,000 individuals are currently utilizing Sand Dollars, with "north of $300,000" of the central bank digital currency (CBDC) currently in circulation. The central bank is nearing the end of ensuring there is interoperability with the automated clearing house (ACH) so there can be a pass-through link between Sand Dollar wallets and deposit accounts. Once that exercise is completed, the central bank along with the financial institutions, is going to be focusing on making an aggressive push to get more businesses enrolled in the infrastructure.

By integrating with The Clearing House's new Real Time Payments (RTP) network, Coinbase can now offer customers in the United States with linked banks accounts instant 24/7 withdrawals up to $100,000. Many customers who withdraw funds opt for Automated Clearing House (ACH) transfers, which can take up to 5 days to move through the pipes of the traditional financial network. Instant cash outs via RTP let you get your money in seconds, 24/7, without the high costs of uncapped fees. Plus, there are no limits on the number of times you can cash out per day. However, there is a fee of 1.5% of the transaction amount for anything up to $10,000 (anything over $10,000 is a flat fee of $150).

The Central Bank of The Bahamas  (CBOB) published a Sand Dollar update in late May. During April and May 2023 they continued with more accelerated outreach, and technical developments to extend proprietary wallet access to the Bahamas Automated Clearing House (ACH) via the Sand Dollar infrastructure were completed. Meanwhile, the first iteration of Wallet 2.0, which will permit user self-activation, progressed to beta testing, with a general release targeted for the middle of the summer of 2023.

"The 2022 Federal Reserve Payments Study (FRPS) collected data for the 2021 calendar year. This initial release includes top-line figures for the core noncash payment methods used in the United States by consumers, businesses, and governments, including payments by general-purpose and private-label cards, automated clearinghouse (ACH) transfers, and checks. This release also covers automated teller machine (ATM) cash withdrawals. Wire transfers, used primarily for large financial transactions, are excluded from these data."

A Bank for International Settlements working paper analyzes regional payment integration projects across the world to identify key lessons for future cross-border payment enhancements on regional and global level, focusing on the role of technology, law and regulation. It finds that ach border adds to the costs of a cross-border payment if crossing the border means entering into a different technological, regulatory and legal environment, with different systems, regulators, and courts. At the global level, mismatches between the inter-institutional framework on the back-end and the contractual relationship with clients on the front-end represent potential costs for the payment services provider and increase legal risk, prompting costly legal, due diligence manual adjustments in payments processes.  The paper concludes that globally coordinated action is needed to develop a comprehensive "single rule book" framework to guide and support regional payment integration.

Wyoming-based Avanti Financial Group has changed its name to Custodia Bank, and announced plans to launch in Q2 with U.S. dollar deposit accounts for business customers, initially providing ACH and Fedwire services. Its post-launch roadmap includes digital asset custody, Avit™ (a payment instrument akin to a digital cashier's check) and prime services, facilitated by customer-facing APIs to enable the programmability of payments by customers.