Note from Dr. Jack Baldwin, CEO

Greetings and Happy New Year from BHMI. It is a great time to be a solutions provider in the payments industry and we are excited about the possibilities for 2024.

Some of the trends that will be interesting to watch throughout the year include the continued rapid adoption of digital wallets and real-time payments, the growing momentum in open banking, and the increased use of new technologies such as biometric payments and generative AI.

As you begin the new year, which promises to be a year of rapid change, we hope you keep BHMI in mind when you need a proven payment back office software solution provider. For years, we have been helping companies modernize the back office components of payment operations.

If you are experiencing any challenges with your payments back office operations, including functions such as settlement processing, reconciliation, and disputes management, I invite you to contact us anytime to discuss how we can help.

Press Release: BHMI & NCR Atleos Partner to Offer Comprehensive Transaction Processing Software Portfolio for Today’s Fast-Changing Payments World

NCR Atleos has signed a reseller agreement with plans to resell BHMI’s Concourse Financial Software Suite, which is a real-time payment processing solution that performs back-office functions such as settlement, reconciliation, disputes management, and fees processing.

NCR Atleos is a leader in facilitating banks and retailers to deliver best-in-class self-service banking experiences for consumers. It also supports the largest footprint of ATMs and is a global leader of ATM and POS transaction technologies.

Podcast: Today's Challenges for Back Office Operations

The back office is where most of the processing of a payment occurs. After a payment has gone through a front-end system for authorization, the back office takes over and performs several key functions. It settles the transactions among the financial entities involved and reconciles them with various sources, such as front ends and network clearing files. The back office also charges the appropriate fees, handles transaction disputes, supports transaction research, and allows real-time financial positions to be viewed.

Thirty years ago, when banks were first moving from cash to digital payments and cards, the ecosystem was different. The legacy systems that were built decades ago are just not capable of meeting today’s payment demands. Those systems were written with an isolated perspective and minimal requirements, then added to and pieced together over the years. The gaps in the operation still often require manual processes to be in place.

At that time, nobody could have projected the transaction volumes seen today. As a result, there was no expectation for real-time processing or real-time data access for decision-making. Everything was handled in batches, and the need to support non-card-based transactions wasn’t even an issue. These historical card-based systems were written to support ISO 8583, not the new standard of ISO 20022 - which makes it hard for back office environments to adapt and put new requirements into their systems.

While this is an exciting time for the payments industry, financial services companies are facing tough challenges as payment processing requirements become increasingly complex—especially in the back office.

In this PaymentsJournal podcast, BHMI’s Chief Technology Officer, Michael Meeks, and Director of Software Engineering, Jon Protaskey, along with Albert Bodine, Director of Commercial and Enterprise Payments at Javelin Strategy & Research, spoke about these challenges.

Article: Can You Afford to Keep Your Back Office?

Software patches and updates won’t cut it in an increasingly competitive payments industry. While some payment processors, banks, and financial services companies try to hang on to their legacy systems, the costs to manage, maintain, and repair these systems are rising.

This article in Digital Transactions by Kate Knudsen, Senior Program Director at BHMI, provides some valuable insights to the question – “Can you afford to keep your legacy payments back office?”.

Article: 4 Challenges in Real-Time Payments & How to Address Them

The payments industry is experiencing rapid adoption of real-time payments because faster payments offer many benefits across the entire economy, including instant settlement, greater transparency, and improved liquidity management. To support instant payments, financial services companies, banks, and payment processors face several challenges along the path to adoption.

Check out this recent article in PaymentsNEXT by BHMI’s Chief Technology Officer, Michael Meeks. In this article, Michael explains the following four operational challenges payment processors face with real-time payments and offers some insights on how to address them:

1. Legacy systems and lack of interoperability
2. High upfront costs and complexity to upgrade
3. Complexity and uncertainty in disputes
4. Inability to monitor risk in real time

Article: Learning from Real-Time Payments Systems Worldwide

While countries in Europe and Asia have moved forward in the adoption of real-time payment systems, the United States still primarily relies on cards and ACH processing. However, that trend is quickly changing.

Growing consumer demand and the rollout of FedNow are expected to drive rapid adoption of real-time payments in the coming years. As a result, many U.S. financial institutions and payment processors are scrambling to catch up and prepare for real-time payments.

This recent article in The Green Sheet by Cheryl Fitzgarrald, Senior Program Director at BHMI, shares insights about the state of real-time payments systems around the world.

Videos: Pioneers in Payments

Check out BHMI's Pioneers in Payments interview series where payments experts share valuable industry insights. Below are links to the interviews released during the last three months. Watch previous interviews on BHMI's YouTube Channel.

If you would like to be a guest on an upcoming episode of Pioneers in Payments, please contact Donna Blum at donna.blum@bhmi.com.

Event: 2024 Identity & Payments Summit

BHMI will attend the 2024 Identity & Payments Summit on February 26th - 28th in Tucson, AZ. This conference covers the scope of payments, identity and the impact on vertical markets including transportation, healthcare, government, education and finance. It will provide attendees with actionable guidance for developing cutting-edge technologies and executing effective implementation strategies. If you would like to schedule a 15-minute meet-up, please e-mail Donna Blum by clicking on the below "Schedule a Meeting" button.

Event: U.S. Faster Payments Council 2024 Spring Member Meeting

BHMI is a member of the U.S. Faster Payments Council (FPC) and will attend the 2024 Spring Member Meeting on March 27th - 28th at the Walt Disney World Swan & Dolphin Resort in Lake Buena Vista, FL. The Spring Member Meeting will bring together FPC members for two days filled with presentations on the most pressing issues in faster payments, panel discussions with industry experts, roundtables on timely topics, and engaging networking opportunities. If you would like to schedule a 15-minute meet-up, please e-mail Donna Blum by clicking on the below "Schedule a Meeting" button.

About BHMI

BHMI is a leading provider of software solutions to modernize back office payments operations. When we say back office, we are referring to the processing that occurs after a payment has been authorized. The authorization of a transaction is only a very small part of the payment lifecycle. There is so much that occurs after authorization. This includes functions such as settlement, reconciliation, and funds movement. It also includes the assessment of transaction-based fees and the handling of any transactions that are disputed. The back office is also where companies view transaction data and financial positions, perform transaction research, create reports and so much more.

BHMI is best known as the creator of the Concourse Financial Software Suite® – an innovative collection of modular back office software solutions that reduce the cost and complexity of back office payments processing. Concourse is ideal for organizations with complex, high-volume, multi-rail payments operations. Concourse is a modern, resilient, omnichannel payment solution that can be integrated within most payment ecosystems to perform back office processing on any type of digital payment, anywhere in the world, 24 x 7 x 365.

Contact BHMI to learn how your organization can benefit from Concourse.

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