COLUMBUS, Ohio—Corporate One FCU is reporting it and its member credit unions are beginning to see the benefits from a years-long effort to become a leading voice in faster payments.
“In 2016, our board of directors made it a strategic initiative for Corporate One to leverage its payments expertise and take a leadership role in developing and helping deliver world-class faster payments solutions here in the United States,” said Corporate One president/CEO Lee Butke.
Charles Harkness, VP, office of portfolio project management at Corporate One, was named to the Federal Reserve System’s Faster Payments Governance Framework Formation Team (GFFT) in late 2017. Harkness has also served on the Faster Payments Task Force since 2015, and as part of the GFFT will help develop and establish an initial faster payments governance framework for the U.S. marketplace, Corporate One said.
“As a trusted provider of payment solutions to credit unions for more than five decades, being a leading and representative voice for our members and our industry during the momentous transition to real-time payments is a strategic imperative for us,” said Butke. “Certainly, having a seat at the table on the GFFT and on the RTP Advisory Committee are tremendous opportunities for Corporate One to participate in formative discussions and to develop a deeper understanding of the real-time payments solutions credit unions will need to succeed in the future.”
Harkness is the only credit union representative on the GFFT, which was established in late 2017 to help develop and establish an initial faster payments governance framework for the U.S. The committee is charged with providing perspectives that will help TCH’s RTP, which was launched as the first real-time payments rail in the U.S. in November 2017, continue to be responsive to all financial institutions and drive adoption of RTP in an effort to achieve the goal of ubiquity by 2020.
Corporate One said other faster payments efforts have included:
- Signing on as one of the first organizations to use a cloud-based testing environment to simulate connectivity to TCH’s real-time payments network.
- Partnering with the Ohio-based non-profit startup accelerator Fintech71, an innovation outpost for the top financial services companies in the U.S.
- Forming a new internal division called “Enterprise Solutions Development” focused on strengthening Corporate One’s ongoing commitment to developing and delivering innovative solutions to the credit union market.