"I'd gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today." Have you ever thought of this comical catchphrase, spoken by the character J. Wellington Wimpy in the long-running comic strip Popeye, when you hear conversations about faster payments? Hamburgers and jokes aside, there are important considerations for getting paid tomorrow for an agreement or exchange made today. That's why the main ingredient to faster payments is settlement.

Settlement provides the decisive transfer of funds between participants. In today's world, we want everything fast, especially money owed to us. A business that waits two to four days for an ACH transaction to process may be waiting too long. The ACH network has recently expedited settlement and now funds availability. Effective March 16, 2018, phase 3 of Same-Day ACH will roll out, making ACH funds availability faster than ever. However, there are still options and business cases that influence how services might be made available to participants. After all, a faster settlement is more than a credit risk discussion.

The Atlanta Fed's Retail Payments Risk Forum is hosting a Talk About Payments (TAP) webinar to discuss the new faster funds availability that Phase 3 of Same-Day ACH will usher in.

The TAP discussion will explore opportunities this faster payment option makes available, along with risk considerations. We encourage financial institutions, retailers, payments processors, law enforcement, academics, and other payments system stakeholders to participate. Participants will be able to submit questions during the webinar.

The TAP webinar—titled "A New Faster Payment Settlement"—will take place on Wednesday, March 14, from 1 to 2 p.m. (ET). Participation in the webinar is complimentary, but you must register in advance at the TAP webinar web page. After completing registration, you will receive a confirmation email with all the log-in and toll-free call-in information.

We hope you will join us for our next TAP webinar March 14.

Photo of Jessica Washington By Jessica Washington, AAP, payments risk expert in the Retail Payments Risk Forum at the Atlanta Fed