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Welcome to the Latest Issue of PaymentsNOW.
BHMI’s resource for insights, trends, and innovations shaping the future of payment processing.
As the payments industry continues to evolve, organizations are facing increasing pressure to modernize operations, support new payment channels, manage growing transaction complexity, and improve efficiency across the entire payment lifecycle. In this issue of PaymentsNOW, we explore why the payments back office is becoming a critical focus area for financial institutions and payment providers looking to reduce costs, improve visibility, and prepare for what’s next.
The featured articles in this newsletter examine the challenges and opportunities surrounding back-office modernization, including how outdated systems can create hidden costs and operational risks, why supporting both ISO 8583 and ISO 20022 is essential for today’s payment processing environments, and how organizations can modernize mission-critical processes without disrupting existing operations.
You’ll also find insights from BHMI leaders and industry experts on managing multi-channel payment processing, enhancing operational agility, and navigating the continued transformation of the payments ecosystem. Plus, discover our latest Pioneers in Payments podcast episodes featuring conversations with industry innovators discussing topics such as artificial intelligence, real-time payments, fintech innovation, and the future of payment operations.
Whether your organization is evaluating modernization strategies or looking for ways to optimize existing payment infrastructures, this issue provides valuable perspectives and practical guidance to help you navigate the changing payments landscape.
We invite you to explore the articles, resources, and expert conversations featured in this edition of PaymentsNOW. Thank you for reading, and we hope you enjoy this issue.
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Is Your Payments Back Office Holding You Back?
Take a Quick 6-Question Check on Modernizing Your Payments Back Office
Modern payments move fast but many back-office environments haven’t kept up. Reconciliation, fee assessment, disputes management, and settlement processing are often spread across disconnected systems, creating inefficiencies, manual work, and unnecessary risk. If your team is spending more time managing back-office functions rather than driving value, it may be time to take a closer look.
Why This Matters
Organizations with complex, high-volume payment environments often reach a tipping point where legacy systems can’t keep up. The result? Increased cost, operational strain, and limited agility. A modern, unified back-office approach can help:
- Streamline operations
- Improve accuracy and visibility
- Reduce manual effort
- Scale with your business
Take the First Step
We’ve created a quick, 6-question assessment to help determine if it’s worth exploring modernization. No sales pitch. No pressure. Just a simple way to see where you stand. If your responses indicate there may be an opportunity to improve efficiency, reduce cost, or simplify operations, we’ll invite you to schedule a “No Pitch” 30-Minute Introductory Call. This is a working session, not a sales demo.
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Why Supporting Both ISO 8583 and ISO 20022 is Critical for Modern Payment Processing
ISO 8583 has been the backbone of card-based payment systems for decades. Its strength lies in its speed, reliability, and widespread adoption across global card networks. From point-of-sale transactions to ATM withdrawals, ISO 8583 continues to power a significant portion of everyday financial activity.
However, real-time payments, open banking initiatives, and cross-border transactions demand richer, more structured data. This is where ISO 20022 comes into play. Designed as a modern, flexible standard, ISO 20022 enables significantly enhanced data exchange, allowing for improved transparency, better reconciliation, and more efficient processing across the entire payment lifecycle.
Implementing a payment back-office environment that supports both ISO 8583 and ISO 20022 enables organizations to achieve greater operational efficiency, meet evolving regulatory requirements, and position themselves for long-term innovation.
This document explains how the Concourse Financial Software Suite delivers a distinct competitive advantage by seamlessly unifying legacy and modern payment processing within a single platform. Designed to support ISO 8583, ISO 20022 or both, Concourse enables financial institutions and payment processors to maximize efficiency across existing systems while accelerating their transition to next-generation payment infrastructures. This dual-standard capability also enhances data utilization, and positions organizations to capitalize on both traditional payment methods and emerging payment innovations.
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Modernizing Payment Operations Without Breaking What Already Works
This article in FinTech – Financial Technology Insights by Kate Knudsen of BHMI breaks down why modernizing post-authorization payment operations is both critical and incredibly complex.
From transaction data reconciliation and fee calculation to dispute management and settlement processing, these deeply embedded systems cannot simply be replaced overnight. Instead, success lies in incremental, controlled modernization that enhances visibility, automation, and flexibility without disrupting what already works.
As Peter Davey (Founder and Principal Advisor, PaymentsJedi Advisory) notes, even small inconsistencies in back-office operations can cascade into major financial and regulatory risks.
And as Aaron McPherson (Principal, AFM Consulting Partners) emphasizes, modernization is ultimately about strengthening trust by improving precision, efficiency, and control where it matters most.
If you are navigating payment operations transformation, this is a must-read perspective on how to modernize payment operations safely, strategically, and successfully.
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The Case for Payments Back-Office Modernization
The payments back office is the operational engine that ensures money moves accurately and efficiently behind every electronic transaction. Yet while banks and processors continue to invest heavily in consumer-facing front-end systems, their back-office infrastructure often remains fragmented, batch-oriented, and increasingly difficult to maintain.
This gap carries real financial consequences such as manual reconciliation workflows, settlement delays, dispute claim losses, and growing compliance exposure quietly drain millions in revenue while limiting scalability and real-time visibility.
This white paper makes the case that this legacy burden is both a significant risk and a solvable problem. It also proposes a solution to consider.
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Mastering Multi-Channel Processing: A Guide for Handling Cards, Mobile and Real-Time Payments
Financial institutions and payment service providers are now managing a growing mix of card transactions, mobile wallets, and real-time payments. Each one has unique operational requirements, settlement timelines, and data complexities.
This article in The Green Sheet by Lynne Baldwin, President of BHMI, explores the challenges and opportunities of multi-channel payment processing and shares strategies for building a more unified, efficient payments operation.
The article also features valuable insights from Steven Hansen of FTI Consulting and Joyce Mehlman of iLEX Consulting Group on the importance of real-time visibility, automation, and operational excellence in today's payments ecosystem.
Key topics include:
- Managing timing mismatches across payment types
- Normalizing data for streamlined reconciliation
- Enhancing real-time visibility and liquidity management
- Leveraging automation and intelligent exception handling
- Modernizing legacy systems for continuous processing
As payment methods continue to diversify and real-time expectations become the norm, organizations that unify processes, improve visibility, and embrace modern technology will be best positioned to turn operational complexity into a competitive advantage.
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Is Your Payments Back Office Costing You Millions? Here's How to Find Out
While the payments industry continues to invest heavily in customer-facing innovations, many banks and payment processors are still relying on aging back-office infrastructures that create hidden costs, operational inefficiencies, and unnecessary risk.
In her latest article published in FinTech – Financial Technology Insights™, Kate Knudsen of BHMI explores how outdated payment back-office systems that perform functions such as reconciliation, settlement, fee assessment, and disputes management can quietly drain millions of dollars from an organization and what leaders can do to identify the warning signs.
The article also outlines key characteristics of a modern payment back-office platform and why now is the time to evaluate whether your infrastructure is prepared for the next generation of payments.
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Pioneers in Payments Podcast
Have you watched BHMI's Pioneers in Payments video podcast series where payments experts share valuable industry insights?
Below are links to the most recent interviews:
We also invite you to watch previous episodes or register to be a guest on an upcoming episode.
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About BHMI
BHMI is a leading provider of software solutions that modernize back-office payment 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.
Learn how BHMI and Concourse are revolutionizing the payments back office.
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11602 West Center Road
Omaha, NE 68144
+1 (402) 333-3300
ewww.bhmi.com
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