The 2025 Money Mobility Forecast: From Fragmentation to Unity: Fintech's Supply Chain Moment

The 2025 Money Mobility Forecast: From Fragmentation to Unity: Fintech's Supply Chain Moment

January 10, 2025 by Drew Edwards

The Amazon Effect: A Supply Chain Revolution I’ve been in financial services since the 80s. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that history doesn’t repeat itself. But it sure does rhyme. Right now, I’m watching the Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) and embedded finance space in fintech undergo its own “supply chain moment.” And it reminds me of a transformation we’ve seen before in e-commerce. Remember when Amazon made that decisive shift from relying on FedEx and UPS to building their own end-to-end logistics network? The conventional wisdom was clear: stick to your core competency and partner with specialists. After all, why would a technology company want to own trucks and warehouses? But Amazon understood something fundamental about serving enterprise customers at scale– when your infrastructure is fragmented across multiple vendors, you can’t guarantee the speed, reliability, or cost structure your customers are demanding. By bringing critical infrastructure in-house, not only did Amazon reduce costs, they revolutionized what was possible. Two-day shipping became two-hour delivery. Seasonal bottlenecks became opportunities for growth. In my opinion, the embedded banking industry is reaching that same inflection point today. How Amazon evolved from relying on others’ infrastructure to building an integrated logistics network that powers modern commerce, fintech platforms must and will evolve from being API aggregators to comprehensive infrastructure providers. And it’s happening right now. Today’s Fintech Stack: A House of Cards For years, the standard playbook for fintech and embedded finance platforms has been to piece together eight, ten, sometimes twelve different vendors just to move money around. One provider for KYC, another for card issuing, another for ACH processing, another for risk management–and each of these relationships adds complexity, cost, and potential points of failure to the stack. It’s like trying to guarantee Prime-level delivery reliability while depending on a different shipping company for each leg of the journey. When everything works perfectly, it’s fine. But in financial services, just like in logistics, perfection is a dangerous assumption. Because here’s the thing about money movement–it’s not just a simple ‘get from point A to point B super-duper fast’. The stakes are simply different. When a package is delayed, you might have an unhappy customer. When the money movement fails, you could be looking at millions in fraud losses or regulatory fines. Or worse. When Platforms Fail, People Suffer That reality is hitting home hard right now with the recent shake ups we’ve seen with players in the fintech space. When these embedded banking and fintech platforms stumble, it cascades through their entire customer base and then beyond. Suddenly you’ve got fintech companies scrambling to find new banking partners, enterprises trying to untangle complex vendor relationships, and regulators taking a much harder look at the whole ecosystem. But there’s more to it than business. Think about what this really means on the ground. When a fintech platform fails, there’s a small business owner who can’t make payroll because their banking provider suddenly shut down. A restaurant worker doesn’t get their tips at the end of a long shift. An insurance customer who lost everything in a hurricane has to wait days and weeks to get their claim money before starting to rebuild their life. Money movement isn’t abstract. It’s deeply personal and urgent. When you’re that small business owner or that restaurant worker, you don’t care about vendor relationships or third-party dependencies. You need your money, and you need it now. That’s why getting this right matters so much. The Great Consolidation is Coming The future of embedded banking belongs to stable companies that own their critical infrastructure while providing the flexibility enterprises need. Amazon’s logistics transformation lets businesses focus on delighting their customers with their products instead of supply chain management. Tomorrow’s finance platforms will let banks and enterprises focus on their customer experience instead of juggling dozens of financial vendors. Your Enterprise Action Plan So what should banks and enterprises be doing right now to prepare for this transformation? Here are three critical considerations I’ve been walking people through when they come to our team for support: First, evaluate your current vendor landscape. How many different providers will you be depending on for critical functions? How much of their stack do they own and control? What happens if any one of them fails? Second, diligence your BaaS partner or fintech platform. How long have they been around?  Have they been through multiple economic cycles? What banks are partnering with them? What does their customer churn look like? Are they fully funded?   Finally, think about your speed to market. How quickly can you launch new financial products? How responsive are your platform partners? Are vendor integrations slowing you down? My 2025 Prediction History doesn’t repeat itself… but it sure does rhyme. My prediction? By 2025, we’ll see a fundamental shift in how fintech platforms like BaaS serve their bank and enterprise needs. The successful platforms won’t be the ones with the most partnerships – they’ll be the ones who understand banking, risk management, and compliance at a fundamental level. And there’s historical context for this I can speak to. For example: Ingo started by running actual bank branches under a joint operating agreement with a $23 billion bank. That was the original BaaS – we owned the operations, they provided the charter, and we followed the rules. What I see happening in a few short years is necessary consolidation. For instance, most current BaaS players are still burning cash, dependent on venture funding, and juggling dozens of critical third-party relationships. That model is risky at enterprise scale. The future of BaaS and embedded finance isn’t about having the most integrations – it’s about having the right infrastructure to make finance and money mobility as fast and as reliable as Amazon makes package delivery when their customers hit ‘buy now’. The Future is Already Here At Ingo, I’m proud to share that we’re already building towards this future. When I was doing due diligence on getting deeper into embedded banking before we bought Deposits, it felt like I was a firefighter running into burning buildings while everyone else was running out. But here’s what I saw through the smoke: an industry where venture-backed platforms were taking on massive risk by relying on dozens of external vendors to handle critical money movement functions. Through strategic moves like our Deposits acquisition and our long-term investment in owning critical money mobility infrastructure, we’ve built what we’re calling the “Modern Money Stack”, combining both banking and payments capabilities in a vertically integrated platform. This isn’t theoretical either–we own and operate the essential components that power almost $20 billion money movement each year. Our check risk management engine processes billions of dollars in real-time decisions for companies like PayPal, Venmo and Regions Bank. Our payment infrastructure handles billions in disbursements for financial institutions like KeyBank, gaming companies like Caesars Sportsbook, and major property and casualty insurers. Additionally, we provide the most complete digital account funding solution, offering a zero-liability fraud guarantee across all three critical form factors: check, card, and ACH. By owning our technology, data and risk mitigation expertise and limited third party dependencies, we’re reducing the vulnerabilities that come with relying on a patchwork of third-party services. When you’re moving money for Fortune 500 companies, you can’t afford to have your ‘warehouse’ catch fire. Or worse, discover your core ‘logistics partner’ just ran out of venture funding. Think about what Amazon did for e-commerce infrastructure. They made it possible for any business to offer world-class delivery without building their own logistics network. That’s the future of Banking-as-a-Service: platforms that let enterprises embed financial services into their products confidently, knowing their infrastructure partner will be there tomorrow. The transformation is already underway. And unlike many players in this space, we’re not burning cash hoping to figure it out along the way. We’re profitable, proven, and building for the long haul. The only question is: are you ready to be part of it?
The 2025 Money Mobility Forecast: Why The Future of Payments Is Freedom, Not Rails

The 2025 Money Mobility Forecast: Why The Future of Payments Is Freedom, Not Rails

January 10, 2025 by 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.
The 2025 Money Mobility Forecast: Why Enterprise Will Redefine Embedded Finance

The 2025 Money Mobility Forecast: Why Enterprise Will Redefine Embedded Finance

January 10, 2025 by Lydia Inboden

There’s an old saying in fintech that experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want. After a decade leading sales and strategy for some of the industry’s pioneering embedded finance and banking platforms, I can tell you this: The lessons that stick with you aren’t from the wins – they’re from the moments that made you completely rethink what’s possible. I love sharing those insights with clients because they often mirror the same journey I’ve been on. They’ll come to me excited about launching a new financial product or service, full of ideas about features and user experience. But then we get to the hard questions about risk management, regulatory compliance, and scalability. That’s when the real conversation begins. Here’s what I’ve learned: building innovative financial products isn’t about having the newest technology or the slickest interface. It’s about having the wisdom to know what you don’t know, and the foresight to build for where the industry is going. Not where it’s been. And where we’re going by 2025 will surprise a lot of people. By next year, the embedded finance landscape will be unrecognizable. The patchwork of vendors and APIs that power most financial services today will give way to unified platforms that own 90% of their technology stack. Companies trying to piece together a dozen different providers for basic money movement won’t survive regulatory scrutiny or scale demands. This isn’t speculation – it’s what happens when regulatory oversight meets enterprise reality. The Regulatory Tide Is Rising The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s recent expansion of supervision to cover major payment providers is a fundamental shift in how regulators view embedded finance. When tech giants face bank-level scrutiny, the old playbook of moving fast, breaking things, and fixing compliance later simply doesn’t work. I’ve sat across the table from bank examiners. They don’t care about your innovative UX or how quickly you can onboard customers. They care about one thing: risk management and oversight.[LI1]  And when your platform depends on 8-12 different vendors to process basic transactions, demonstrating effective risk management becomes nearly impossible. Think about what happens when a bank examiner asks to trace the flow of funds across your platform. In a typical embedded banking setup, critical money movement functions are fragmented across multiple vendors – from basic account funding to payment processing to check deposits. Each vendor has their own data format, their own retention policies, and their own security protocols. It’s a nightmare scenario for both the bank and their fintech partners. The Enterprise Wake-Up Call This regulatory evolution is driving a fundamental shift in who succeeds in embedded finance, and recent events have made this crystal clear. When a major Banking-as-a-Service provider recently filed for bankruptcy, we discovered something troubling: around $85 million in customer funds across 100,000 accounts couldn’t be properly traced or accessed. The root cause wasn’t only inadequate ledgering technology – it was a broader failure of infrastructure and controls. Let me break down what enterprises need to understand about modern financial infrastructure. Your ledger is the foundation of trust for every dollar that moves through your platform. When you’re managing multiple banking relationships and serving enterprise clients, you need four critical pillars working in harmony: First, bulletproof ledgering that can track every penny in real-time. This means knowing exactly where money is, who it belongs to, and maintaining a complete audit trail of how it got there. When regulators ask questions, you need answers immediately, not after days of reconciliation. Second, comprehensive third-party risk management. Every vendor, every integration, every partner becomes part of your risk profile. In today’s environment, you’re responsible for the entire chain of custody for customer funds. One weak link can bring down the whole system. Third, bank-grade security and privacy controls. This isn’t simply ‘encrypting data’ and putting a bow on it – it’s about building systems that can prevent commingling of funds, ensure proper segregation of duties, and support immutable audit trails. When you’re handling enterprise-scale money movement, every security decision has million-dollar implications. Fourth, automated compliance that scales. Manual reviews and periodic audits won’t cut it anymore. You need systems that can automatically flag suspicious patterns, enforce regulatory requirements, and adapt as rules change. This is where compliance automation becomes critical – humans in large banking operations can’t keep up with the volume and complexity of modern financial transactions. That’s why my conversations with enterprise prospects have fundamentally changed. I’ve been recently diving deep into questions like: How do you keep separate ledgers for operating funds versus customer deposits? What controls prevent commingling of funds across different programs? Can you provide real-time reconciliation across all banking partners? How do you track and document the full lifecycle of every transaction? What happens if one of your banking partners faces regulatory challenges? These are existential questions that decide whether you can work in a regulated environment. When regulators demand a complete audit trail of all customer funds, you can’t afford to have gaps in your ledger or rely on third parties to piece together the compliance story. You need rock-solid infrastructure that can stand up to scrutiny while supporting the speed enterprises demand. The winners in this space won’t be the ones with the most features or the fastest integrations. They’ll be the ones who’ve built bank-grade infrastructure into their DNA, who can demonstrate complete control and visibility over every dollar that touches their platform. Because in today’s regulatory environment, anything less is a recipe for disaster. Building for Bank-Grade Scale In my view, the solution isn’t about adding more vendors or building more complex integrations. It’s fundamentally rethinking how we deliver embedded finance at enterprise scale. This requires leveraging platforms that: First, own the majority of the value chain. Instead of slapping together 12 different vendors, leading platforms are bringing critical capabilities in-house – from core processing to risk management to compliance monitoring. Second, automate compliance by design. When regulatory requirements are built into your platform architecture rather than bolted on afterward, you can maintain both speed and security. Third, provide bank relationship portability. Your technology shouldn’t lock you into a single bank partnership. Enterprises need the flexibility to work with multiple banks while maintaining consistent technology and compliance frameworks. Implementation in the Real World For enterprises considering embedded finance initiatives, here’s what successful implementation looks like in practice: Start with risk assessment. Map out every money movement touchpoint in your proposed solution and name potential compliance requirements before writing a single line of code. Build for examination. Design your data architecture assuming regulators will want to see everything. This means consistent formatting, comprehensive audit trails, and real-time access to critical information. Plan for scale. The compliance frameworks that work for 100 transactions won’t work for 100 million. Build automated controls that can scale with your business. The 2025 Vision By 2025, the embedded finance market will be unrecognizable from today. The successful platforms won’t only connect APIs: they’ll own most of the value chain and more, eliminate third–party risk, and deliver bank–grade compliance at fintech speed. This transformation won’t be driven by new technology or innovative features. It will be driven by enterprise demands for reliability, security, and compliance at scale. The winners will be the platforms that understand both banking and technology – that can move at fintech speed while supporting bank-grade controls. For enterprises exploring embedded finance, the message is clear: partner with platforms that have lived through the compliance evolution, not just the technology revolution. Because in embedded finance, experience isn’t just what you get when things go wrong – it’s what prevents things from going wrong in the first place. The future of finance belongs to the enterprises. And the platforms that succeed will be the ones built for enterprise scale from day one.

More from the Ingo blog

The 2025 Money Mobility Forecast: From Fragmentation to Unity: Fintech's Supply Chain Moment

The 2025 Money Mobility Forecast: From Fragmentation to Unity: Fintech’s Supply Chain Moment

January 10, 2025 By Drew Edwards

The Amazon Effect: A Supply Chain Revolution I’ve been in financial services since the 80s. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that history doesn’t repeat itself. But it sure does rhyme. Right now, I’m watching the Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) and embedded finance space in fintech undergo its own “supply chain moment.” And it reminds me of a transformation we’ve seen before in e-commerce. Remember when Amazon made that decisive shift from relying on FedEx and UPS to building their own end-to-end logistics network? The conventional wisdom was clear: stick to your core competency and partner with specialists. After all, why would a technology company want to own trucks and warehouses? But Amazon understood something fundamental about serving enterprise customers at scale– when your infrastructure is fragmented across multiple vendors, you can’t guarantee the speed, reliability, or cost structure your customers are demanding. By bringing critical infrastructure in-house, not only did Amazon reduce costs, they revolutionized what was possible. Two-day shipping became two-hour delivery. Seasonal bottlenecks became opportunities for growth. In my opinion, the embedded banking industry is reaching that same inflection point today. How Amazon evolved from relying on others’ infrastructure to building an integrated logistics network that powers modern commerce, fintech platforms must and will evolve from being API aggregators to comprehensive infrastructure providers. And it’s happening right now. Today’s Fintech Stack: A House of Cards For years, the standard playbook for fintech and embedded finance platforms has been to piece together eight, ten, sometimes twelve different vendors just to move money around. One provider for KYC, another for card issuing, another for ACH processing, another for risk management–and each of these relationships adds complexity, cost, and potential points of failure to the stack. It’s like trying to guarantee Prime-level delivery reliability while depending on a different shipping company for each leg of the journey. When everything works perfectly, it’s fine. But in financial services, just like in logistics, perfection is a dangerous assumption. Because here’s the thing about money movement–it’s not just a simple ‘get from point A to point B super-duper fast’. The stakes are simply different. When a package is delayed, you might have an unhappy customer. When the money movement fails, you could be looking at millions in fraud losses or regulatory fines. Or worse. When Platforms Fail, People Suffer That reality is hitting home hard right now with the recent shake ups we’ve seen with players in the fintech space. When these embedded banking and fintech platforms stumble, it cascades through their entire customer base and then beyond. Suddenly you’ve got fintech companies scrambling to find new banking partners, enterprises trying to untangle complex vendor relationships, and regulators taking a much harder look at the whole ecosystem. But there’s more to it than business. Think about what this really means on the ground. When a fintech platform fails, there’s a small business owner who can’t make payroll because their banking provider suddenly shut down. A restaurant worker doesn’t get their tips at the end of a long shift. An insurance customer who lost everything in a hurricane has to wait days and weeks to get their claim money before starting to rebuild their life. Money movement isn’t abstract. It’s deeply personal and urgent. When you’re that small business owner or that restaurant worker, you don’t care about vendor relationships or third-party dependencies. You need your money, and you need it now. That’s why getting this right matters so much. The Great Consolidation is Coming The future of embedded banking belongs to stable companies that own their critical infrastructure while providing the flexibility enterprises need. Amazon’s logistics transformation lets businesses focus on delighting their customers with their products instead of supply chain management. Tomorrow’s finance platforms will let banks and enterprises focus on their customer experience instead of juggling dozens of financial vendors. Your Enterprise Action Plan So what should banks and enterprises be doing right now to prepare for this transformation? Here are three critical considerations I’ve been walking people through when they come to our team for support: First, evaluate your current vendor landscape. How many different providers will you be depending on for critical functions? How much of their stack do they own and control? What happens if any one of them fails? Second, diligence your BaaS partner or fintech platform. How long have they been around?  Have they been through multiple economic cycles? What banks are partnering with them? What does their customer churn look like? Are they fully funded?   Finally, think about your speed to market. How quickly can you launch new financial products? How responsive are your platform partners? Are vendor integrations slowing you down? My 2025 Prediction History doesn’t repeat itself… but it sure does rhyme. My prediction? By 2025, we’ll see a fundamental shift in how fintech platforms like BaaS serve their bank and enterprise needs. The successful platforms won’t be the ones with the most partnerships – they’ll be the ones who understand banking, risk management, and compliance at a fundamental level. And there’s historical context for this I can speak to. For example: Ingo started by running actual bank branches under a joint operating agreement with a $23 billion bank. That was the original BaaS – we owned the operations, they provided the charter, and we followed the rules. What I see happening in a few short years is necessary consolidation. For instance, most current BaaS players are still burning cash, dependent on venture funding, and juggling dozens of critical third-party relationships. That model is risky at enterprise scale. The future of BaaS and embedded finance isn’t about having the most integrations – it’s about having the right infrastructure to make finance and money mobility as fast and as reliable as Amazon makes package delivery when their customers hit ‘buy now’. The Future is Already Here At Ingo, I’m proud to share that we’re already building towards this future. When I was doing due diligence on getting deeper into embedded banking before we bought Deposits, it felt like I was a firefighter running into burning buildings while everyone else was running out. But here’s what I saw through the smoke: an industry where venture-backed platforms were taking on massive risk by relying on dozens of external vendors to handle critical money movement functions. Through strategic moves like our Deposits acquisition and our long-term investment in owning critical money mobility infrastructure, we’ve built what we’re calling the “Modern Money Stack”, combining both banking and payments capabilities in a vertically integrated platform. This isn’t theoretical either–we own and operate the essential components that power almost $20 billion money movement each year. Our check risk management engine processes billions of dollars in real-time decisions for companies like PayPal, Venmo and Regions Bank. Our payment infrastructure handles billions in disbursements for financial institutions like KeyBank, gaming companies like Caesars Sportsbook, and major property and casualty insurers. Additionally, we provide the most complete digital account funding solution, offering a zero-liability fraud guarantee across all three critical form factors: check, card, and ACH. By owning our technology, data and risk mitigation expertise and limited third party dependencies, we’re reducing the vulnerabilities that come with relying on a patchwork of third-party services. When you’re moving money for Fortune 500 companies, you can’t afford to have your ‘warehouse’ catch fire. Or worse, discover your core ‘logistics partner’ just ran out of venture funding. Think about what Amazon did for e-commerce infrastructure. They made it possible for any business to offer world-class delivery without building their own logistics network. That’s the future of Banking-as-a-Service: platforms that let enterprises embed financial services into their products confidently, knowing their infrastructure partner will be there tomorrow. The transformation is already underway. And unlike many players in this space, we’re not burning cash hoping to figure it out along the way. We’re profitable, proven, and building for the long haul. The only question is: are you ready to be part of it?
The 2025 Money Mobility Forecast: Why The Future of Payments Is Freedom, Not Rails

The 2025 Money Mobility Forecast: Why The Future of Payments Is Freedom, Not Rails

January 10, 2025 By 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.
The 2025 Money Mobility Forecast: Why Enterprise Will Redefine Embedded Finance

The 2025 Money Mobility Forecast: Why Enterprise Will Redefine Embedded Finance

January 10, 2025 By Lydia Inboden

There’s an old saying in fintech that experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want. After a decade leading sales and strategy for some of the industry’s pioneering embedded finance and banking platforms, I can tell you this: The lessons that stick with you aren’t from the wins – they’re from the moments that made you completely rethink what’s possible. I love sharing those insights with clients because they often mirror the same journey I’ve been on. They’ll come to me excited about launching a new financial product or service, full of ideas about features and user experience. But then we get to the hard questions about risk management, regulatory compliance, and scalability. That’s when the real conversation begins. Here’s what I’ve learned: building innovative financial products isn’t about having the newest technology or the slickest interface. It’s about having the wisdom to know what you don’t know, and the foresight to build for where the industry is going. Not where it’s been. And where we’re going by 2025 will surprise a lot of people. By next year, the embedded finance landscape will be unrecognizable. The patchwork of vendors and APIs that power most financial services today will give way to unified platforms that own 90% of their technology stack. Companies trying to piece together a dozen different providers for basic money movement won’t survive regulatory scrutiny or scale demands. This isn’t speculation – it’s what happens when regulatory oversight meets enterprise reality. The Regulatory Tide Is Rising The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s recent expansion of supervision to cover major payment providers is a fundamental shift in how regulators view embedded finance. When tech giants face bank-level scrutiny, the old playbook of moving fast, breaking things, and fixing compliance later simply doesn’t work. I’ve sat across the table from bank examiners. They don’t care about your innovative UX or how quickly you can onboard customers. They care about one thing: risk management and oversight.[LI1]  And when your platform depends on 8-12 different vendors to process basic transactions, demonstrating effective risk management becomes nearly impossible. Think about what happens when a bank examiner asks to trace the flow of funds across your platform. In a typical embedded banking setup, critical money movement functions are fragmented across multiple vendors – from basic account funding to payment processing to check deposits. Each vendor has their own data format, their own retention policies, and their own security protocols. It’s a nightmare scenario for both the bank and their fintech partners. The Enterprise Wake-Up Call This regulatory evolution is driving a fundamental shift in who succeeds in embedded finance, and recent events have made this crystal clear. When a major Banking-as-a-Service provider recently filed for bankruptcy, we discovered something troubling: around $85 million in customer funds across 100,000 accounts couldn’t be properly traced or accessed. The root cause wasn’t only inadequate ledgering technology – it was a broader failure of infrastructure and controls. Let me break down what enterprises need to understand about modern financial infrastructure. Your ledger is the foundation of trust for every dollar that moves through your platform. When you’re managing multiple banking relationships and serving enterprise clients, you need four critical pillars working in harmony: First, bulletproof ledgering that can track every penny in real-time. This means knowing exactly where money is, who it belongs to, and maintaining a complete audit trail of how it got there. When regulators ask questions, you need answers immediately, not after days of reconciliation. Second, comprehensive third-party risk management. Every vendor, every integration, every partner becomes part of your risk profile. In today’s environment, you’re responsible for the entire chain of custody for customer funds. One weak link can bring down the whole system. Third, bank-grade security and privacy controls. This isn’t simply ‘encrypting data’ and putting a bow on it – it’s about building systems that can prevent commingling of funds, ensure proper segregation of duties, and support immutable audit trails. When you’re handling enterprise-scale money movement, every security decision has million-dollar implications. Fourth, automated compliance that scales. Manual reviews and periodic audits won’t cut it anymore. You need systems that can automatically flag suspicious patterns, enforce regulatory requirements, and adapt as rules change. This is where compliance automation becomes critical – humans in large banking operations can’t keep up with the volume and complexity of modern financial transactions. That’s why my conversations with enterprise prospects have fundamentally changed. I’ve been recently diving deep into questions like: How do you keep separate ledgers for operating funds versus customer deposits? What controls prevent commingling of funds across different programs? Can you provide real-time reconciliation across all banking partners? How do you track and document the full lifecycle of every transaction? What happens if one of your banking partners faces regulatory challenges? These are existential questions that decide whether you can work in a regulated environment. When regulators demand a complete audit trail of all customer funds, you can’t afford to have gaps in your ledger or rely on third parties to piece together the compliance story. You need rock-solid infrastructure that can stand up to scrutiny while supporting the speed enterprises demand. The winners in this space won’t be the ones with the most features or the fastest integrations. They’ll be the ones who’ve built bank-grade infrastructure into their DNA, who can demonstrate complete control and visibility over every dollar that touches their platform. Because in today’s regulatory environment, anything less is a recipe for disaster. Building for Bank-Grade Scale In my view, the solution isn’t about adding more vendors or building more complex integrations. It’s fundamentally rethinking how we deliver embedded finance at enterprise scale. This requires leveraging platforms that: First, own the majority of the value chain. Instead of slapping together 12 different vendors, leading platforms are bringing critical capabilities in-house – from core processing to risk management to compliance monitoring. Second, automate compliance by design. When regulatory requirements are built into your platform architecture rather than bolted on afterward, you can maintain both speed and security. Third, provide bank relationship portability. Your technology shouldn’t lock you into a single bank partnership. Enterprises need the flexibility to work with multiple banks while maintaining consistent technology and compliance frameworks. Implementation in the Real World For enterprises considering embedded finance initiatives, here’s what successful implementation looks like in practice: Start with risk assessment. Map out every money movement touchpoint in your proposed solution and name potential compliance requirements before writing a single line of code. Build for examination. Design your data architecture assuming regulators will want to see everything. This means consistent formatting, comprehensive audit trails, and real-time access to critical information. Plan for scale. The compliance frameworks that work for 100 transactions won’t work for 100 million. Build automated controls that can scale with your business. The 2025 Vision By 2025, the embedded finance market will be unrecognizable from today. The successful platforms won’t only connect APIs: they’ll own most of the value chain and more, eliminate third–party risk, and deliver bank–grade compliance at fintech speed. This transformation won’t be driven by new technology or innovative features. It will be driven by enterprise demands for reliability, security, and compliance at scale. The winners will be the platforms that understand both banking and technology – that can move at fintech speed while supporting bank-grade controls. For enterprises exploring embedded finance, the message is clear: partner with platforms that have lived through the compliance evolution, not just the technology revolution. Because in embedded finance, experience isn’t just what you get when things go wrong – it’s what prevents things from going wrong in the first place. The future of finance belongs to the enterprises. And the platforms that succeed will be the ones built for enterprise scale from day one.
Reinventing Account Funding with Ingo Payments & Sardine: From Slow and Risky to Instant and Safe

Reinventing Account Funding with Ingo Payments & Sardine: From Slow and Risky to Instant and Safe

November 6, 2024 By Ingo Payments

In today’s highly competitive financial landscape, acquiring new customers is no longer the only hurdle for account issuers. The real challenge lies in making newly opened accounts useful and accessible from the moment of acquisition.   While customer onboarding is often instantaneous, funding remains a bottleneck, with slow and risky methods like checks and ACH causing days-long delays in funds availability. As a result, a large percentage of accounts are opened but never funded, significantly driving up acquisition costs without delivering value. This disconnect between account creation and funding leaves issuers struggling to activate and engage new customers, ultimately missing opportunities to maximize the potential of newly acquired accounts.  However, a broader transformation of account funding is underway. Innovations like digital transfers from bank accounts, debit card transactions, and check deposits are shifting the process from slow and risky to instant and risk-managed, making account funding faster, safer, and more reliable for both issuers and their customers.  Instant Access: Innovations in Digital Account Funding  The modern fintech era has introduced instant account funding, enabling customers to move money into their accounts in real time, using digital payment rails to provide immediate access to deposited funds. Customers can now instantly fund their accounts via digital transfers from bank accounts, cards, or check transactions, making account creation not only fast but immediately useful.   Among the newer innovations is instant card funding using Account Funding Transactions (AFT). These transactions, initiated by the cardholder’s bank via Visa Direct or Mastercard Send, allow customers to pull funds directly from a debit or credit card into a new or existing account. Although AFT is still relatively new, its growing adoption is transforming how funds move between accounts, offering faster, more efficient transfers for both issuers and customers.  The Challenges: Fraud Risks in Digital Account Funding  While digital account funding brings significant benefits, it also comes with risks—most notably fraud. Instant transactions provide less time for issuers to review and mitigate risks, while ACH transfers impose risks due to lengthy return cycles. Types of fraud associated with digital account funding include:  Friendly Fraud: This occurs when a consumer initiates a legitimate transaction to fund their account—such as using a debit or credit card to transfer money into their fintech or bank account—but later disputes the transaction with their card issuer, claiming it was unauthorized or a mistake.  Account Takeover Fraud: Hackers gain access to a consumer’s account and initiate unauthorized transactions.  Card-not-present (CNP) Fraud: In digital card transactions where the physical card isn’t presented, fraudsters use stolen card details to fund accounts instantly.  In the U.S., consumers may have up to 90 days to dispute an unauthorized electronic funds transfer. This consumer protection, while crucial, adds significant risk for issuers. Even after funds have been made available instantly, consumers can file a dispute, forcing issuers to investigate the claim and potentially refund the money. This can lead to losses for account issuers, especially in cases of friendly fraud where the transaction was initially authorized by the consumer.  The Impact of Fraud on Account Issuers  Due to the heightened risk of fraud, many issuers have scaled back or discontinued their offerings of instant funding. The potential for significant losses, coupled with regulatory obligations to address disputes, has made it a risky endeavor. As a result, despite strong consumer demand for fast and accessible funds, some issuers have been cautious in adopting or expanding their instant funding solutions.  Ingo & Sardine’s Risk-Managed Solutions for Instant Card & ACH Funding  To address the challenges posed by account funding fraud, Ingo has partnered with Sardine to offer instant account funding via card and ACH, jointly providing the technology, processing, and protection necessary to drive account usage. This unique offering leverages our collective expertise and databases to manage risk across our network of clients and customers.  Our solution combines the power of Ingo’s and Sardine’s extensive network-wide fraud data and AI-driven analysis to generate real-time risk scores. These scores empower issuers to make fast, informed decisions on funding eligibility, while minimizing exposure to fraudulent transactions. Together, our advanced risk models continuously evaluate transactions for fraud indicators, providing issuers with immediate insights into the risk profile of each transaction.  Additionally, Ingo’s dedicated support team monitors all transactions in real time, adding another layer of protection against instant fraud. This live risk management allows us to catch fraudulent activities as they happen, further safeguarding businesses from potential threats.  By identifying fraud risks, protecting against them, and locking out bad actors, Ingo and Sardine ensure a safer, more efficient account funding process that benefits both issuers and customers.  Zero-Liability Fraud Guarantee  Beyond fraud detection and risk scoring, our offering includes an optional zero-liability fraud guarantee. Account issuers who choose this guarantee option are fully protected from any financial losses caused by fraudulent chargebacks or disputes. This means that if a fraudulent transaction bypasses our detection systems, we take full responsibility for the chargeback, relieving issuers of any liability. This level of protection is rare in the market and offers peace of mind for issuers looking to offer account funding without the risk.  With Ingo Payments and Sardine, account issuers can offer faster, safer, and more secure account funding options. For Fintechs, our solutions mitigate risk while enabling exceptional customer experiences. For traditional banks, they provide seamless onboarding and instant funding, keeping them relevant in the digital landscape. These innovations enhance services and protect issuers’ bottom line in a competitive market. Learn More   Looking for account funding solutions with comprehensive risk management and guaranteed fraud protection across all funding sources—card transfers, bank transfers, and checks? Ingo Payments can help.
Ingo Payments and Sardine Launch Risk-Managed Instant Account Funding, Backed by Zero-Liability Fraud Guarantee

Ingo Payments and Sardine Launch Risk-Managed Instant Account Funding, Backed by Zero-Liability Fraud Guarantee 

October 23, 2024 By Ingo Payments

ALPHARETTA, Ga.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Ingo Payments, a trusted leader in account funding and disbursement solutions defined as money mobility, and Sardine, the leader in real-time fraud prevention, today announced a new partnership to offer instant, risk-managed account funding via card and ACH, backed by an optional zero-liability fraud guarantee. This, combined with Ingo’s industry-leading inbound check funding solution, provides issuers with a complete solution for fast, secure account funding across all three critical form factors: check, card, and ACH.  In today’s financial landscape, issuers face the dual challenge of preventing fraud while ensuring that new accounts are funded and valuable from the start. Despite streamlined onboarding, traditional funding methods such as ACH are slow and prone to risk, often resulting in unfunded accounts and higher acquisition costs. Card funding, while faster, has been found to be highly vulnerable to fraud, causing many issuers to scale back or discontinue these options.  The Ingo Payments and Sardine partnership addresses these issues by offering instant card and ACH funding, supported by real-time risk management that detects and prevents fraud before it impacts issuers. By combining Ingo’s and Sardine’s extensive network-wide fraud data and AI-driven analysis, the solution generates real-time risk scores, empowering issuers to make fast, informed decisions on funding eligibility while minimizing exposure to fraudulent transactions. The optional zero-liability fraud guarantee ensures issuers are fully protected from any fraud-related losses.  “With this partnership, we’re offering issuers more than just fast funding,” said Drew Edwards, CEO of Ingo Payments. “By combining our collective expertise, fraud data, and technology, we’re integrating real-time risk management with a zero-liability fraud guarantee, delivering a secure solution that enables issuers to engage customers instantly, mitigating concerns over fraud-related losses.”   “At Sardine, we make sure fraud prevention happens before a transaction is even completed, using real-time data and machine learning to stay ahead of the game. This partnership gives issuers a solution that not only speeds up funding but adapts intelligently to new fraud tactics, so they can move fast without worrying about risk,” said Soups Ranjan, CEO of Sardine.  Ingo Payments and Sardine help issuers overcome the challenge of unfunded accounts, reduce acquisition costs, and drive greater customer engagement by offering instant, secure, and risk-managed funding options from day one. The solution is now commercially available.  About Ingo Payments  Ingo Payments enables banks, fintechs, and enterprise brands to deliver innovative financial experiences through its bank-grade, compliance-first embedded finance platform. Complete with money mobility capabilities, built on top of a modern money stack, the platform provides the foundation for account funding, transfers, mobile deposits, payouts, digital wallets, bank account creation, card issuing, PFM, and rewards solutions across a wide range of industries and use cases. By vertically integrating issuing, payment processing, and risk underwriting services, we help clients reduce third-party risk, operational complexity, and costs, while accelerating time to market. Learn more at ingopayments.com.  About Sardine  Sardine’s real-time fraud prevention and compliance platform is trusted by leading companies in financial services and ecommerce. We apply device intelligence, behavior biometrics, and machine learning to protect every step of the customer journey – from onboarding to payments and logins. Sardine enables hundreds of organizations worldwide to rapidly detect and stop identity fraud, payment fraud, account takeovers, social engineering scams, fraud rings, money laundering and advanced bot attacks. Backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Visa, Experian, FIS, and Google Ventures, Sardine is a proven leader in the fight against financial crime. Learn more at sardine.ai.  Contact Sarah Higginssarah@ingopayments.com
The Ongoing Battle Against Check Fraud: How Ingo is Staying Ahead

The Ongoing Battle Against Check Fraud: How Ingo is Staying Ahead

October 4, 2024 By Bill Roese

In an age dominated by digital payments, check fraud may seem like a relic of the past. But check fraud continues to plague both businesses and consumers alike. In 2023 alone, check fraud amounted to approximately $20 billion in losses—with the numbers expected to surpass $25 billion this year, signaling a growing, not diminishing, challenge for the industry. The Nationwide Surge in Check Fraud The COVID-19 pandemic reignited interest in check fraud as a lucrative crime, when U.S. federal and state governments issued roughly 76 million stimulus relief checks to eligible Americans. While checks made up only a small percentage of total stimulus payments, it was enough to signal the untapped potential for paper check fraud. According to the Federal Reserve, since that time, check fraud has increased by an astonishing 385%. Even more concerning, a recent study conducted by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) revealed that of the 15,417 Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) filed over the past six months, an alarming $688 million were linked to mail theft. Fraudsters have even begun to exploit social media platforms such as TikTok, with users posting videos that claimed to reveal a “glitch” in Chase Bank’s ATM system—only to discover it was a classic case of check fraud involving the deposit of fake checks. Ingo Mobile Check Cashing – Guaranteed Protection for Clients and Consumers For over 23 years, Ingo Money has been at the forefront of check deposit risk management, providing turn-key check-cashing solutions for leading financial brands such as Regions Bank, ADP, GreenDot, and Incomm, as well as directly through our proprietary Ingo Money App. Since launching our mobile check-cashing solutions 11 years ago, we’ve remained committed to providing a non-revocable funds guarantee. This means that once a check is accepted and cashed using our service, the money stays with the check casher, even if the check is returned or later found to be fraudulent. Despite the nationwide surge in check fraud, Ingo has kept its check fraud losses stable. Even during the peak of the pandemic, when fraudulent activity surged across industries, Ingo did not experience an increase in losses. While fraud attempts grew by 145% in 2021, we continued to confidently approve more transactions. In fact, since 2021 Ingo has increased its first-time check casher approval rates by 25%. This is significant considering that first-time check cashers carry considerably higher risk, with losses five times higher than repeat customers. Yet, due to our proactive fraud detection systems and risk management strategies, we’ve been able to consistently mitigate these risks, while driving revenue growth for our clients. A Hybrid Defense: Merging AI and Human Expertise Today, the check risk management industry touts the power of AI and machine learning, but at Ingo, we believe it’s the combination of human expertise and cutting-edge technology that sets us apart. Our AI-powered tools, including advanced data sources, device identification, and behavior analytics, are invaluable to our success. But these systems are only as good as the people behind them. Fraudsters are constantly evolving their tactics, and while AI and machine learning models must learn from new data to adapt, waiting for these systems to catch up and teach themselves can be costly. This is where our team of seasoned analysts, each with an average tenure of 12 years, comes into play. Our experienced team detects and mitigates fraudulent transactions in real-time, often manually reviewing transactions and performing visual inspections of check images, identifying early signs of fraud before it can escalate. For instance, a 10-second review of a suspicious check image might reveal the beginnings of a larger fraud ring, allowing us to act quickly and prevent further damage. We then feed this information back into our AI models to ensure they stay updated with the latest trends. Our Investigations team consistently analyzes data and monitors fraud trends, identifying emerging patterns as they arise. These daily reports are shared across teams, creating feedback loops that improve detection skills and strengthen our defenses. When new fraud tactics bypass existing systems, our teams collaborate to devise both temporary and long-term solutions—an agile approach that allows us to adapt to new threats swiftly, minimizing the risk while permanent technology-based solutions are developed. Finally, our team of Customer Experience Specialists provide customer service that goes beyond industry standards. Through these interactions, we gain invaluable insights into consumer behavior and preferences, which we feed back into our fraud prevention strategy. Looking Ahead Despite technological advancements, check fraud isn’t going away anytime soon. As fraudsters evolve their tactics, businesses and consumers must remain vigilant. At Ingo, we believe that while technology is an indispensable tool in the fight against fraud, it’s our people—their experience, expertise, and adaptability—that set us apart. Looking ahead, we will continue to evolve by combining human intelligence with cutting-edge AI to stay ahead of emerging threats, safeguarding financial transactions and protecting our clients.

Explainer series from Ingo

What Is An Electronic Disbursement?

What Is An Electronic Disbursement?

April 4, 2024 By Ingo Payments

In the digital age, traditional methods of receiving payments, such as paper checks, are gradually being replaced by more efficient and convenient electronic or digital disbursements. But what exactly is an electronic disbursement, and how does it work? Let’s break it down. An electronic disbursement, also known as an e-disbursement or digital disbursement, refers to the transfer of funds from one party to another using electronic means, typically through online banking systems or digital payment platforms. Instead of physical checks or cash transactions, electronic disbursements rely on digital channels to facilitate the movement of funds quickly and securely. How Do Electronic Disbursements Work? Electronic disbursements leverage various electronic payment methods to transfer funds seamlessly. Some popular methods include: ACH Transfers: Automated Clearing House (ACH) transfers offer a reliable and cost-effective way to transfer funds electronically. ACH transfers can be used for various types of payments, including direct deposits, bill payments, business-to-business transactions, and person-to-person transfers. Direct Deposit: Employers, government agencies, and financial institutions often use direct deposit to electronically deposit funds directly into recipients’ bank accounts. This method eliminates the need for physical checks and enables quick access to funds, with a turnaround time of only 1-3 days. Digital Wallets: Digital wallet platforms, such as PayPal, Venmo, or Apple Pay, allow users to send and receive money electronically using their mobile devices. Users can link their bank accounts or debit/credit cards to these wallets, making it easy to transfer funds digitally. Push-To-Card: Push-to-card is a method of electronically transferring funds directly onto a prepaid or to a bank account via a debit card associated with a recipient. Funds are pushed from the sender’s account or payment platform directly onto the recipient’s card, typically using the card network’s infrastructure. Push-to-card is an electronic disbursement method that allows instant access to funds. Benefits of Electronic Disbursements: Speed: Electronic disbursements offer rapid fund transfer, often providing recipients with immediate access to funds compared to traditional methods like paper checks. Convenience: Recipients can receive funds electronically without the hassle of visiting a bank or waiting for a physical check to arrive in the mail. This convenience enhances the overall user experience. Security: Electronic disbursements employ encryption and other security measures to protect sensitive financial information, reducing the risk of fraud or theft associated with paper-based transactions. Cost-Effectiveness: Digital/electronic disbursements can be more cost-effective for businesses, as they eliminate expenses related to paper, printing, and postage associated with physical checks. Electronic Disbursements: A Growth Opportunity Electronic disbursements represent a fundamental shift away from old-school payment methods and the time they take to process. These newer, digital disbursements have many benefits, including speed, convenience, security, and cost-effectiveness for both businesses and the clients they serve. While electronic payments are already becoming the norm, as financial technology continues to advance, electronic disbursements are expected to play an even more integral role in the financial transactions landscape—providing individuals and businesses with a seamless payment solution for today and into the future. Want to learn more about electronic disbursements, and how the right payments orchestrater can help you get your digital payments and disbursements in order? Talk to one of our experts at Ingo Payments.
How Long After Disbursement Will I Get My Money?

How Long After Digital Disbursement Will I Get My Money?

March 26, 2024 By Ingo Payments

The breakneck pace of modern business has created a true need for swift and efficient funds disbursement. When every minute of every transaction counts to your customers, delays in accessing funds can impede handling financial obligations or operations. This is where digital disbursements come into play. Digital disbursements offer a fast and secure alternative to traditional paper check. But just how quickly can a company’s funds be accessed after a digital disbursement? Digital disbursements have emerged as a game-changer for companies looking to streamline their payment processes, decrease the cost of paper checks and increase the real-time mobility of their money. These electronic alternatives to sluggish, paper-based methods are on track to ubiquity. Why? Because digital disbursements prioritize speed, security, and convenience. Unlike the cumbersome process of waiting for a physical check to arrive in the mail, digital disbursements expedite the transfer of funds, ensuring recipients can access their money promptly. One of the primary advantages of digital disbursements revolves around choice: there are various electronic payment methods available, each with its own timeline for funds availability. Let’s delve into some of these methods and their respective timelines (and check out our article explaining the different types of digital disbursements here. Quick access to funds ACH Transfers: Automated Clearing House (ACH) transfers are a tried-and-true staple in digital disbursements, offering a reliable and cost-effective way to transfer funds electronically. Money moves between bank accounts through the ACH network. ACH transfers can be used for various types of payments, including direct deposits, bill payments, business-to-business transactions, and person-to-person transfers. Typically, ACH transfers take 1-3 business days to process, providing recipients with relatively swift access to their funds. Wire Transfers: Wire transfers are electronic transfers of funds between banks or financial institutions. While they are usually faster than ACH transfers, they may still take a few hours to complete, especially for international transfers. Instant Access to Funds Push-to-card: Push-to-card refers to the process of electronically transferring funds directly onto a prepaid or to a bank account via a debit card associated with the recipient. Funds are pushed from the sender’s account or payment platform directly onto the recipient’s card, typically using the card network’s infrastructure. Recipients can then access the funds immediately for purchases, withdrawals, or other transactions. Digital Wallets: Platforms such as PayPal and Venmo enable instant transfers, with recipients often able to access their funds within minutes of the disbursement being initiated. Real-Time Payments (RTP) & FedNow: These modern payment systems enable instantaneous transfers between participating financial institutions. RTP transactions are processed instantly, with funds transferred directly between the sender’s and recipient’s accounts in real-time. Recipients can access the funds immediately upon receipt, making it suitable for time-sensitive transactions. Digital Disbursements: Fast, Secure Money Mobility To run effectively, businesses with a need to provide customers access to funds need to carefully consider the optimal method for their disbursements. They must weigh factors such as speed, cost, and convenience. While traditional paper checks may still have their place in certain types of transactions, the advantages of digital disbursements are undeniable, especially in terms of their speed. By embracing electronic payment methods, businesses can streamline their operations, enhance cash flow, and deliver a superior experience for recipients. They can cut the arrival time for a customer’s funds down from waiting a week for a check in the mail, to just one to three days with ACH. Or they can join the instant payments revolution and give their clients instant access to the funds they need through push to card, digital wallets, RTP and FedNow. While the timeline for accessing funds after a digital disbursement varies depending on the chosen payment method, there’s no doubt that going digital speeds up the timeline for customers interested in accessing their money. At any rate, by leveraging the efficiency of digital disbursements, businesses can position themselves for success in today’s fast-paced business landscape and get money into their customer’s pockets quicker and more efficiently.
What is an example of a digital disbursement?

Demystifying Disbursements: What is an Example of a Digital Disbursement?

March 13, 2024 By Ingo Payments

We’ve already defined what a digital disbursement is, and how they play a crucial role in facilitating seamless transactions and empowering businesses to manage their finances efficiently. But how does a digital disbursement work, and what is a clear example of one? Understanding Disbursements: A Refresher First, a quick refresher: a digital disbursement is an online financial transaction that involves the quick and secure distribution or payout of funds from one party to another. This can take many forms—salary payments, vendor payments, refunds, or any other outgoing funds disbursed by an organization and orchestrated electronically. Essentially, disbursements encompass the movement of money from a source to single or multi-party recipients, making them a fundamental aspect of financial operations. Digital disbursements are those that take place in an online space, for example, without the use of a paper check. Examples of a Disbursement: Consider a scenario where a large ecommerce platform needs to disburse payments to its network of sellers. These disbursements may include the revenue generated from product sales, refunds, or even incentives for high-performing sellers. In this case, the ecommerce platform acts as the disburser, while individual sellers represent the recipients of the disbursed funds. To execute this process seamlessly, a payment orchestrator comes into play. The payment orchestrator streamlines and automates the disbursement process, ensuring that funds are transferred accurately and promptly. It integrates with various financial institutions, payment gateways, and other relevant systems to orchestrate a smooth flow of funds from the ecommerce platform to the sellers. Digital Disbursements in Action Let’s delve deeper: here’s another real-world example of a digital disbursement. Imagine an online marketplace processing vendor payments digitally. Upon the completion of a successful sale, the marketplace triggers an automated disbursement process through its integrated payment orchestrator. Again, we move to a payment orchestrator, which validates the transaction details, ensuring accuracy and compliance. Subsequently, the payment orchestrator communicates with the seller’s bank via secure APIs, initiating a direct fund transfer to the seller’s account. This digital disbursement not only minimizes the processing time but also provides a transparent audit trail. This entire workflow showcases how technology-driven digital disbursements streamline financial operations, offering just a quick glimpse into the streamlined efficiency of modern digital financial transactions. Benefits of Automated Digital Disbursements Those examples of digital disbursements may have helped you get a feel for the types of transactions and companies they may benefit. But why should a business consider moving toward a digital disbursement system for payouts? Here are just some of the benefits of going digital with disbursements. Efficiency: Automation reduces manual intervention, minimizing the risk of errors and enhancing the overall efficiency of the disbursement process. Speed: Automated disbursements enable swift fund transfers, allowing businesses to meet their financial obligations in a timely manner. Accuracy: By leveraging technology, payment orchestrators ensure that disbursed amounts are accurate, avoiding discrepancies that may arise through manual processing. Cost-effectiveness: Automation not only saves time but also reduces operational costs associated with manual disbursement processes. Given the immense benefits, digital disbursements facilitate the movement of funds in various sectors. As businesses continue to embrace digital transformation, understanding and optimizing disbursement workflows become essential for fostering financial agility and success.