David Long of Bryant Bank offers an experienced perspective on the evolution of payments
4/25/2024
David Long is the Executive Vice President of Correspondent Banking Bryant Bank (Off-site), a community bank with locations across the state of Alabama.
We spoke with Long to learn about his longstanding experience in the payments space, including his perspective on instant payments adoption at Bryant Bank and across the broader industry.
Q: To begin with, can you highlight why your organization chose to join the FedNow® Pilot Program and become an early adopter of the service?
A: “At Bryant Bank, we see the value in collaboration and felt we needed to offer our opinions, especially as a correspondent bank. We see instant payments as the future of how payments will be processed. That’s not to say the other payment rails will go away, but a segment of businesses and consumers will choose instant payments over those other rails over time, and we wanted to be prepared for that migration.”
Q: Where does Bryant Bank stand in terms of readiness to implement the FedNow Service?
A: “Once our core service provider is certified to conduct instant payment transactions, we will complete our final setup. So far, our conversations with our core service provider could not have been better. They have been proactive; they have been planners; and they have been engaged with us and the Federal Reserve. I like to say that implementing instant payments is something that must be done as the plane is flying, and we can’t land it to start the first transactions until everything is built. The beauty is, we are in flight and can almost see the runway lights to begin landing.”
Q: What have been the biggest takeaways from instant payments planning, and what is your advice to other organizations?
A:“During the process, it was important for us to complete risk assessments, align on strategy, and consider what requests we may receive from our customer base. My advice is to ask questions about how your organization will use instant payments and to understand what problems you are solving for that are currently causing pain. This helps determine what your customers need and defines what education is necessary during the initial rollout phase. Education is very important – being in the industry, it can be easy to take that for granted.”
Q: In your opinion, why is it important for financial institutions and service providers to act now when it comes to instant payments?
A: “I have been in the industry for a long time and always use ACH as an example because it was not fully effective until everyone participated. The FedNow Service is the same way; full industry participation will lead to the most effective instant payments capabilities. If you are not at least in the database as a participant, you will be limited in receiving some instant payments. This has major implications for use cases like payroll, which is something that is beneficial to process in seconds versus having to wait until end of day after it’s posted to your core.”
Q: How do you predict instant payments will impact the industry as we know it?
A: “One word: transformative. It will be a process similar to what we’ve seen for other payment rails we utilize every day. I truly think that the market will find applications that solve issues for our customers and for the industry as instant payments become more commonplace in daily life and business.”
Want to learn more about the real-world impact of instant payments? Read more FedNow Q&As here.