Note from Dr. Jack Baldwin, CEO

Spring is finally here, and it’s a busy, exciting time at BHMI! We have lots to share in this edition of the PaymentsNOW Newsletter—from new insights on transforming payments back-office operations to the latest innovations in real-time settlement. Be sure to check out our new video and webinar that spotlight how Concourse is helping companies modernize, automate, and future-proof their payments infrastructure.

We’re also excited to share thought leadership pieces, a compelling podcast on reconciliation challenges, and a major compliance release for the Concourse Financial Software Suite. Plus, don’t miss our newest "Pioneers in Payments" episode featuring NCR Atleos and details on our upcoming presence at the FPC Spring Member Meeting in San Diego.

As always, thank you for being part of our journey—we’re just getting started!

Video: Revolutionizing Payments Back-Office Processing with BHMI & Concourse

For decades, BHMI has been at the forefront of innovation and delivering proven software solutions designed to modernize the payments back office. This new video explains why companies around the globe are selecting the Concourse Financial Software Suite to transform the back-office processing of electronic payments.

Webinar: How to Transform Your Payments Back Office with Concourse

This webinar dives into how Concourse not only transforms the payments back office but also future-proofs it. Companies using Concourse have seen a strong return on investment because Concourse allows them to be proactive and efficient with their back-office processing. They are also supporting ongoing changes in the payments industry without the time and cost of software code changes.

Article: Why FI's Must Rethink Their Payments Back Office First

In a recent article in BAI Banking Strategies by ProSight Financial Association, Casey Scheer of BHMI dives into why the payments back office is the hidden powerhouse behind financial innovation, and why modernizing back-office infrastructures is critical.  Legacy systems drive up costs, hinder efficiency, and limit scalability - making it harder to meet customer expectations.

Industry experts like Jared Drieling (TSG), Joyce Mehlman (iLex), Anthony Serio (Serio Payments Consulting), and Peter Tapling, APRP (PTAP Advisory) explain that while financial institutions race to adopt real-time payments, digital wallets, and other advancements, many overlook a crucial element: their payments back-office operations.

Read how payment processing companies are modernizing their payment back-office processing to maximize automation, real-time insights, and agility.

Article: Evolution of Card Payment Settlement - From Batch to Real-Time

For decades, batch settlement has been the backbone of card-based transactions. However, with the evolution of faster payments, traditional settlement cycles of one to three business days are being replaced with faster options, including real-time settlement.

In a recent PaymentsNEXT article, BHMI’s Casey Scheer explores how the payments industry is shifting toward real-time and continuous processing to meet modern settlement demands. Innovations like RTP®, FedNow®, Same-Day ACH, Visa Direct, and Mastercard Send are enabling near-instant fund transfers—giving businesses faster access to liquidity.

"Off-the-Rails" Podcast: Tony Cook from First Bank and Donna Blum from BHMI on Payments Reconciliation

For many companies, the reconciliation of payments data is time-consuming and costly. Some studies have shown that over 30% of a financial institution’s back-office labor costs are associated with reconciliation activities. And the reconciliation process has become more complex with the rapid adoption of faster payments. That coupled with rapidly growing transaction volumes has made manual and batch reconciliation processing insufficient and can lead to millions in financial discrepancies.

You don’t want to miss this “Off the Rails” Podcast by the U.S. Faster Payments Council. In this episode, FPC’s Executive Director and CEO, Reed Luhtanen, has an insightful discussion with Tony Cook, EVP of Payment Operations and Real Time Payments at FirstBank and Donna Blum, Software Sales Director at BHMI about the reconciliation process, some of the key challenges, and the importance of automated real-time reconciliation.

Press Release: BHMI Announces Card Scheme and Payment Network Compliance Release for the Concourse Financial Software Suite

BHMI has announced the availability of a card and payment network compliance release for the Concourse Financial Software Suite. As a payments back-office software solution for electronic payments, Concourse supports card scheme and payment network mandates. BHMI has a team of people focused on the mandate process. This team continually reviews the network mandate materials and assesses the impact across all modules within Concourse, including transaction loaders, extracts, and dispute plans.

To give an example of how Concourse adheres to network mandates, Concourse has pre-configured dispute plans that ensure network compliance from both an issuer and acquirer perspective. These dispute plans include reason codes, day limits, amount limits, and sequential dispute actions. Each dispute plan is configured to support the appropriate dispute actions (e.g., copy request, chargeback, representment, adjustment, retrieval request, fulfillments, and user-defined actions for the governing network such as Visa, Mastercard, etc.). These dispute plans are updated based on the mandate releases by the payment networks.

Since Concourse supports any type of electronic payment, including both card-based and account-to-account payments, this compliance release also includes updates for non-card-based networks. For example, it includes mandate updates for the New Payments Platform (NPP), which is Australia’s real-time payment system.

Pioneers in Payments: Transforming Payments with Alex Borthwick of NCR Atleos

The latest episode of "Pioneers in Payments" is LIVE! In this episode, Donna Blum sits down with Alex Borthwick, a proven leader in Product Management and Software across the financial services landscape. As VP of Software Product Management at NCR Atleos, Alex shares his expertise and insights on driving transformation within the payments space.  You can watch this episode HERE.

We also invite you to watch previous episodes and register to be a guest on an upcoming episode.

Event: FPC 2025 Spring Member Meeting

As a member of the U.S. Faster Payments Council (FPC), BHMI will be attending the 2025 Spring Member Meeting on April 23-24 in San Diego, CA. If you would like to schedule a meeting with BHMI during this event, please e-mail Donna Blum.  We are looking forward to seeing you in San Diego!

We also invite you to attend the dynamic panel discussion on "Harnessing Data Analytics to Optimize Operations" on April 23rd from 12:45 - 1:25 PM in the Emerald Ballroom. Donna Blum and the other panelists will dive into how financial institutions can leverage data to drive efficiency and innovation in payments.

Donna will be joined by this incredible group of payments experts:

• Miriam Sheril, Form 3 (Moderator)
• Thomas Aiello, BNY
• Dean Nolan, Finzly
• Fred Fuller, Endava

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 reconciliation and settlement. 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 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, payment solution that can be integrated within most payment ecosystems to perform back-office processing on any type of electronic payment, anywhere in the world, 24x7x365.

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

11602 West Center Road
Omaha, NE  68144
+1 (402) 333-3300 
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