Author: Lisa McFarland

For over a decade, I’ve watched the payments industry act like a city transportation department obsessed with building newer, faster train lines. First it was the peer-to-peer express, then the blockchain bullet train – each promising to be the next breakthrough in moving money. But as we look toward 2025, I’m convinced we’ve been focused on the wrong goal. After all, a shiny new train line doesn’t help if you really need to take a bus, grab a taxi, or ride your bike. What people really want isn’t another way to get from point A to point B – they want the freedom to travel anywhere, anytime, using whatever transportation makes sense for their journey. The same is true for money movement. Beyond the Rails: The Real Payment Revolution The numbers tell the story. Heading into 2025, the CFPB will now oversee more than 13 billion annual consumer payment transactions. The average consumer juggles multiple bank accounts, payment apps, and digital wallets. Businesses need to pay out through everything from instant deposit to digital wallets to paper checks. It’s like asking someone to buy separate tickets for every mode of transportation they might need on a trip – inefficient, expensive, and unnecessarily complex. And this complexity isn’t just theoretical. Take for example an insurance company trying to process claims payments. They might need one system for ACH transfers, another for check printing, another for card payments, and yet another for digital wallet transfers. Each system has its own integration requirements, risk management protocols, and regulatory considerations. It’s like running four different transit authorities in the same city, each with their own ticketing systems, safety protocols, and schedules. The operational overhead is enormous, and the potential for things to go wrong multiplies with every new system added. Yet most payment solutions still force consumers and businesses into rigid pathways. Want to deposit a check? Wait three days at the station. Need to move money between accounts? That’ll be a 24-48 hour layover. Want to receive an insurance payout instantly? Sorry, you’re on the wrong line – please transfer to platform 9¾. This fragmentation isn’t just inconvenient – it’s becoming a regulatory liability. When Ingo first pioneered push-to-debit capabilities over a decade ago, we were solving what seemed like a simple problem: getting money to a consumer’s debit card instantly. But we quickly learned that speed without security creates chaos. It’s like building a high-speed rail system without proper safety signals and crossings – you’re just creating new risks at higher speeds. As payment volumes grow exponentially, regulators are demanding stronger consumer protections and more sophisticated risk management. The old model of treating each payment rail as its own isolated transit system simply won’t cut it anymore. The solution isn’t building more isolated systems, it’s fundamentally rethinking how we connect and secure all forms of money movement. The Rise of Intelligent Money Movement What’s emerging instead is a new paradigm I call “intelligent money movement.” Think of it as a universal transit pass that works across every form of transportation, with built-in safety features and real-time journey planning. This approach focuses on three critical elements that will define successful payment platforms in 2025: First, unified risk management across all transaction types. Whether you’re taking a train, bus, or taxi, you want consistent safety standards. The same goes for money movement – whether it’s a check deposit, card load, or ACH transfer, every transaction needs real-time risk scoring and fraud prevention. Second, instant availability with appropriate controls. Just as modern transit systems can fast-track known commuters while adding extra security checks for unusual journeys, smart payment platforms use real-time data to make funds available instantly when safe while applying additional verification when needed. This intelligent approach to money movement isn’t just about making things faster – it’s about making them smarter. Our experience processing billions in transactions has shown that different payment types carry different risk profiles, just like different types of journeys require different levels of security. A payroll deposit from a known employer is like a daily commuter train – predictable, regular, lower risk. A large check deposit from an unknown source is more like an international flight – it requires additional verification to ensure everything is legitimate. The key is having systems intelligent enough to adapt security protocols based on the type of journey. Third, complete payment freedom for the end user. Your transit pass should work everywhere, and your money should move just as freely. The platform shouldn’t care whether someone wants their insurance payout on a debit card, in their PayPal account, as a paper check, or on a new, instantly issued account. Building for 2025: A New Architecture for Money Movement This vision requires a fundamental rethinking of payment architecture. Instead of building separate stations for every type of transportation, enterprises need unified hubs that can: Handle any payment source or destination through a single integration Apply consistent risk management across all transaction types Provide real-time visibility into money movement Maintain regulatory compliance at scale For enterprises building or expanding payment capabilities, here are the critical considerations for 2025: Audit your money movement infrastructure: Map out every vendor, integration, and system needed to process different payment types. Each connection is a potential point of failure. Assess your risk management consistency: Test whether a $1,000 transaction gets the same level of scrutiny whether it’s coming through ACH, card deposit, or check scanning. Inconsistency creates vulnerability. Evaluate your customer experience: Try to complete common payment journeys through your platform. If customers hit dead ends or forced detours, you’re limiting their financial freedom. My 2025 Prediction The technology to enable this vision already exists. We’re seeing and helping leading enterprises implement unified payment platforms that can process everything from instant digital account funding to disbursements through a single integration. These platforms are proving that with the right architecture and risk management capabilities, you can offer payment freedom without compromising security or compliance. The real challenge ahead isn’t technical innovation – it’s embracing a fundamental shift in how we think about moving money. Just as modern cities succeed by connecting their subways, buses, bikes, and rideshares into one seamless transportation system, tomorrow’s payment leaders will win by unifying all forms of money movement under one intelligent platform. My prediction for 2025 is simple: Just as travelers today expect to get anywhere using any combination of car, plane, or train without hassle, consumers and businesses will expect that same freedom with their money. The companies that succeed won’t be the ones building slightly faster trains – they’ll be the ones creating intelligent networks that can move money as freely and safely as people move through a well-designed city. The future of payments isn’t about rails – it’s about freedom. And that freedom comes from having the intelligence to get money where it needs to go, safely and instantly, by any path necessary.

It seems like these days every transactional business is looking for a way to simplify and accelerate payouts and disbursements. Many companies are turning to payout orchestration providers like Ingo Payments, to handle every facet of a disbursement, so they can essentially “fire and forget it”.  While Ingo Payments offers a host of embedded payments technologies, we pride ourselves on the comprehensive scale of our DigitalPay SaaS platform. Simply put, our DigitalPay SaaS platform is an end-to-end payments platform that seamlessly manages customer digital engagement and payouts orchestration across the disbursements lifecycle, from initiation to settlement, while ensuring security, compliance, and risk management, in a custom-branded experience. But what are the components of our DigitalPay SaaS solution? And what makes it a superior choice for a company looking to implement digital disbursements without the hassles of building internal infrastructure or managing risk and compliance?  This article will walk you through the benefits of a full-scale solution and discuss what makes Ingo Payments a top choice that can make payouts easier for your business, no matter what industry you operate in. (For more information on how Ingo can work to create a bespoke payment solution for your specific industry needs, check this out.) What Do We Mean By “Full-Scale”?  Launched in 2019, Ingo’s full-scale platform supports both single- and multi-party ad hoc and recurring disbursements and P2P payments. It offers configurable, dynamic workflows, as well as comprehensive risk and compliance management.  All this comes with a customizable look, tone, feel, and voice for your unique business. Our platform can be configured for both small-scale individual clients and large, enterprise payment systems. In other words, whatever your needs, the DigitalPay SaaS platform will fit your business.  But let’s break down our platform’s key features and how they might help a business scale.   A Customizable Digital Payment Center platform  Building out an interface for a digital payments disbursement center is no small task: it involves extensive development work as well as UX design to support a wide array of workflows and user journeys. It also requires complex back-end integrations with both existing payment rails and external partners. Ingo makes the whole process simple by offering a proprietary digital payouts solution that is easily configured and fully brandable, incorporating your existing website or mobile app interface’s look, tone, and feel and your brand voice.  Robust Payments Processing Our SaaS platform offers broad payment choice and reaches over 4.5B accounts, including bank accounts by debit card, RTP and ACH, credit cards, digital wallets, even instant digital accounts and cards providing disbursements recipients with unmatched choice—which leads to increased customer satisfaction.  That’s the Ingo difference. Our proprietary payments network is designed to provide redundancy, automated failover, and least-cost routing. This network was created based on decades of experience and long-established integrations with payment networks and top-tier financial institutions. Our clients can rely on these direct integrations to ensure that their money reliably goes to the right place at the least cost, every time.  Risk Management/Compliance: User Authentication and Account Verification When it comes to payment processing, risk management, and compliance are vital aspects of ensuring that money ends up in the right place. Good risk management begins with user authentication. Ingo provides a variety of authentication capabilities, including knowledge-based, multi-factor, one-time authorization and single sign-on integration options. Authentication methods may vary by use case and according to custom risk rules. Ingo’s DigitalPay SaaS solution boasts multiple customer payment options, which means that behind the scenes verification (name, address, account number, codes and routing numbers, etc.) and comparison of data sets between client and customer is a vital aspect of keeping money secure.  The Ingo solution also includes counter-verification through payment network or third-party services which matches up data and ensures that an account is in good standing in terms of ownership as well as status before money is moved, reducing payment failures and transactional risk.  Different companies have different needs associated with risk, often depending on the amount of funds involved in day-to-day transactions. The Ingo solution allows individual clients to determine what they want their risk rules to be, and how robust their risk management engine is. We then configure the platform to balance seamless/frictionless transactions with tighter, more customer-intensive verification.  Payment Reconciliation Our payment orchestration system keeps track of all transactions to ensure that the amounts settled match the amounts processed. Discrepancies are flagged for further inspection in our reconciliation platform, which works to ensure accuracy in every transaction. Ingo also provides daily line-item reconciliation reporting and aggregated treasury account settlement to ensure maximum security and clear visibility into your numbers.  Reporting and Analytics Speaking of data, Ingo’s SaaS solution boasts comprehensive reporting and analytics tools that provide insights into transaction volume, metrics associated with your customer journey and behavior (from risk screening to payment type mix), and other key performance indicators. This data helps businesses optimize payment strategies and identify areas for improvement, ultimately upping client satisfaction and reducing friction.  In addition, SaaS clients not only get financial business performance, but also trend reporting and industry benchmarks to get you the insights you need to guide business decision-making. Data Security Ingo maintains data security and integrity meeting data encryption standards for non-public personal information and financial data. This means maintaining compliance with SSAE SOC 1, Type 2, SOC 2, Type 2, and PCI DSS Level 1 security standards, which is considered the most robust in each category. Unparalleled Client Servicing and Support Throughout the entire process, our DigitalPay SaaS platform prioritizes a seamless and frictionless client experience, minimizing payment errors, delays, and disruptions. We provide our clients with end-to-end operational support for payment disputes, including proof of payment evidence and clawback requests.  Ingo also conducts quarterly business reviews to optimize your disbursements program, receive feedback and inform future product offerings. In Conclusion Ingo Payments’ full-scale, DigitalPay SaaS platform is a best-in-class all-in-one solution for building and scaling digital disbursements capabilities for companies across a wide spectrum of payout needs. Ingo provides infrastructure and support to make adding disbursements a breeze for businesses of all sizes, from start-ups to enterprise-level businesses.  To learn more about how the Ingo SaaS platform might work for your specific business needs, contact a specialist here.

At Ingo, we care about payments orchestration. And that’s no surprise, considering orchestration is both a vital aspect of the payments landscape, and one that’s often overlooked. But what is payments orchestration, and why does it matter? At it’s most simple: payments orchestration involves the management and coordination of all the disparate parts of a payment—from start to finish, across external vendors, internal systems and financial institutions. Traditionally, this payments orchestration has referred to merchant acquisition or an inbound consumer payment and covers payment authorization, transaction routing and settlement. But the rise in popularity of increased money mobility and instant access, as well as an ever-evolving digital fraud landscape, has dramatically changed the dynamics of payments orchestration. The expectation that money can flow seamlessly into and out of any account a consumer chooses, instantly and safely, now requires payment orchestrators to manage both inbound and outbound money transfers. This is a level of orchestration that few third-party providers can reach and that fewer still have achieved successfully and at scale. Payments Orchestration 101 Payments orchestration is influenced by many factors and varying perspectives. It’s. more than a simple payments process—its function varies widely depending on the company, its industry, and the complexity of its payment operations. At its core, a payment relies on a processor to deliver funds to an account number. As the originator, a company issues a directive to “pay this account” and the processor obliges. But it would be wrong to assume that an organization can simply contract with a processor like Stripe and begin issuing payments. The value of a well thought-out payment orchestration system quickly becomes apparent when chargebacks start and losses mount—with poor visibility into what’s going on, and poor organization to keep everything running smoothly. This is because a processor does not handle all the many ancillary (yet vital) operations that go into making a payment. The processor does not confirm if an account number is valid and active, that an account is owned by the intended party, or that the account in question has been screened for sanctions. Nor do they tokenize the account for future payments, creating a redundancy in the system which can cause slower payments. These orchestration functions are normally performed by separate vendors or partners that are managed by the payments’ orchestrator. In the past, many companies have served as their own payments orchestrators. But rising complexity and the demands of money mobility are making this ever more challenging, as we have articulated. So, with mounting complexity and poor internal mechanism in place, what does a business do to ensure smooth payment orchestration at every step of the process? Well, that’s where we come in. Ingo Payments is the only external payments orchestrator handling both inbound and outbound money flows. Payments Orchestration for Money Mobility As the pioneer in push payments and the leader in money mobility solutions, Ingo Payments is practiced at the art of payments orchestration. Through a single API integration, we can handle every component of a payment on a client’s behalf and configure these services to meet a client’s business and digital workflow processes and desired customer experience. From the moment a company supplies payment instructions, we go to work. The Ingo system first verifies the account is valid, in good standing and passes account verification screenings. We then report back on this status and, if valid, tokenize the account so companies can send future payments without having to store personally identifiable customer account information, relieving them of PCI-level security burdens. Once the sender issues an actual payment process request using the token information and transaction amount, Ingo initiates all the required regulatory screening. These include all relevant anti-money laundering (AML), Know Your Customer (KYC) and Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) requirements to ensure recipients are not subject to sanctions or other concerns. If the recipient account clears all the checks, Ingo then issues the payment. If there is a hit on the screening, the platform escalates the concern to the Ingo Risk Center for further review. Ingo Payments also offers clients a unique guarantee against losses. Our add-on transaction risk underwriting and transaction guarantee services allow clients to breathe easy knowing they will enjoy exceptionally high approval rates without being on the hook for fraudulent payments or other risk-related issues. Saving Time and Money with Ingo Payments Ingo Payment’s end-to-end payments orchestration capability means clients can “fire and forget it.” We handle every facet of a payment in an in-line flow. Our platform can plug into external vendors, and even be customized to allow certain functions to be handled in-house (or by another trusted partner if preferred). Without Ingo, clients would have to either integrate separately to different vendors for account verification, sanctions screening, tokenization, processing and more, or integrate to a processor that might offer some of these third-party services. In both cases, a client would still need to build its own payments orchestration system and processes. This DIY approach means more vendors and agreements, more technical integration, more complex technical development, and, ultimately, more incremental expense. With Ingo, clients get the advantage of a simplified integration with third-party services configured and managed synchronously by Ingo behind a reduced API call set, significantly reducing development complexity. Our clients also benefit from the halo effect of our cumulative volume and pricing, as well as the redundancy necessary to protect against downtime due to third-party vendor technical issues and outages. Ultimately, the need for payments orchestration is taking on greater urgency and complexity in the era of Money Mobility. Ingo Money stands alone as a trusted, proven orchestration partner that can deliver on the promises of seamlessness and security at scale, providing companies with time and cost savings and—perhaps more importantly—total peace of mind.