Industry Insider Article with Bill Smither

ACH Payment Solutions

February 2006

Electronic Check Solutions Available to More Organizations

Author: Deborah Fisher

“To share our industry expertise and strategic relationships with our business partners and customers to offer unprecedented value to their business and marketing plans.” ACH Payment Solutions’ (ACHPS) mission statement might sound very familiar, but how it translates that mission statement into practice is what sets it apart from the competition.

ACHPS was formed in 2002 to develop a national sales distribution channel to sell automated clearing house (ACH) processing opportunities to the regional merchant, biller and financial institution market.

The merchant market is mainly comprised of e-commerce merchants who need a guaranteed web check on their shopping cart. This risk-free payment option allows the merchant to deliver goods or services knowing they will receive 100 percent payment on authorized transactions. Target merchants range in size from small “mom and pop” operations to large regional merchants with 100-plus locations. Historically, these merchants are largely ignored, underserved and produce higher margins.

The biller market focuses on businesses that provide a large volume of bills to their customers (typically monthly bills to consumers). This market includes mortgage institutions, insurance companies, utilities, healthcare and other businesses with large numbers of consumers.

The financial institution market focuses on banks, credit unions and other financial institutions that offer online banking products and electronic bill payment services to their customers.

ACHPS primarily markets its services via well-established marketers (ISOs) in the merchant card processing industry. ACHPS has leveraged its experience and contacts to build an ISO sales channel for ACH services much the same as the merchant processors did in the 1990s.

ACHPS has formed strategic alliances with processing partners that offer a comprehensive array of services to cover the needs of any size business. It chooses a consultative selling approach and tailors ACH processing solutions to fit the needs of their customers. “We are working with one prospect, a large insurance company, to provide online bill presentment and they are going to be doing their recurring statements on ACH,” says Bill Smither, director business development for ACHPS. “However, we would also be able to offer the same services to smaller community banks.”

Using its solutions, ACHPS’ clients are able to present their bills and invoices through a broad distribution network and receive payments from consumers and businesses using the Internet, telephone or web. ACHPS’ solutions use a payment-processing engine that posts payment instructions to its clients’ accounts receivable systems and performs the settlement of funds.