It’s the Network, Not the Rail: CEO Drew Edwards Reflects on FedNow’s First Year

Ingo Payments: Fostering A Culture of Possibilityby Drew Edwards Innovation and growth have always been at the heart of Ingo Payments’ journey. From our origins operating bank branches for underserved communities in Atlanta to our evolution into the leader and architect of money mobility, our commitment to asking “what if” has shaped our path. The acquisition of Deposits represents a transformative step forward, embodying the “yes, and …” mindset that drives us to continually innovate and create value for our customers. Moving from ‘No, Because …’ to ‘Yes, And … Internally, Ingo Payments fosters a culture of possibility by listening to our clients and shaping our efforts around their needs. We challenge traditional paradigms by empowering our teams to think expansively about solutions rather than focusing on constraints. The acquisition of Deposits exemplifies this approach. Instead of relying on internal assumptions, we asked purposeful questions: “What more can we do to deliver greater value for our clients?” “How can we leverage our expertise to address their most pressing challenges?” “What would a platform look like that simplifies innovation while ensuring compliance and scalability?” These inquiries helped us reimagine embedded banking, resulting in a vertically integrated platform that seamlessly combines ledgering, issuing, payments and compliance capabilities with the flexibility and scalability our clients need to innovate. Technology as a Catalyst for Industry Transformation Emerging technologies are crucial to driving transformative change in the payments and banking industry. Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are particularly powerful for predictive risk management and operational efficiency. At Ingo Payments, we leverage AI-driven insights across our inbound account funding solutions — spanning check, card and ACH — to mitigate risk, enhance security and optimize customer interactions. Paired with our zero-liability fraud guarantee, this approach ensures clients can scale operations confidently while protecting their customers. While AI and ML optimize processes behind the scenes, our no-code and low-code solutions ensure that innovation is accessible to every organization, regardless of technical expertise. These tools empower organizations to bring innovative products to market more quickly, without the barriers of legacy infrastructure. This democratization of financial technology underscores our belief that the future of payments lies in accessibility and adaptability. Asking ‘What If’ and Acting on It At Ingo Payments, our “yes, and …” mindset drives us to continuously ask, “What if?” This approach extends to rethinking the financial ecosystem as a whole. The acquisition of Deposits was guided by one such question: “What if we could unify fragmented financial processes into a single platform that meets the needs of modern consumers and businesses and in doing so empower ecosystems to create new economic possibilities for our clients?” By answering that question, we expanded our capabilities beyond payments, enabling clients to build feature-rich accounts, integrate real-time payments, and simplify embedded financial solutions. This bold step unlocked new opportunities for growth — not just for Ingo Payments, but for our customers and the industry at large. As we continue this journey, we remain committed to asking “what if” and delivering on those questions with tangible solutions. At Ingo Payments, the future isn’t just about adapting to change — it’s about anticipating it, shaping it and leading the way.

As the banking and payments sector stands on the cusp of 2025 on a new regulation-averse government worldview, one of the issues that bears watching is the partnerships between banks and FinTechs. As a group, they have created new ways of moving money, across apps, platforms and mobile devices. FinTechs have largely been untested in terms of risks or controls, and in some cases — such as with the fall of Synapse, and with tens of thousands of end customers unable to access their funds — following the money has been difficult. Exactly how FinTechs will be regulated will depend on the yet-unseen fate of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as well as more traditional institutions like the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Ingo Payments CEO Drew Edwards is a keen observer of bank-FinTech relationships. He told Karen Webster in an interview that the key drivers prioritized by investors and startups have been “the customer experience and customer acquisition.” The overarching strategies have been on removing barriers to growth while making accounts easy and quick to set up. The tenets of safe banking practices have been prioritized less. Firms that focus only on growth and customer acquisition have suffered. However, those that can focus on the core tenets of safe banking, with customer experiences always top of mind (but not at the expense of those tenets), will lead to healthy customer acquisition, he said. “The operating rules that keep you out of trouble and mean success versus failure are different now,” he said, adding that “what’s changing are the rules around how banks play with FinTechs.” Those operating rules may be pushed and prodded a bit, but in the end, the specter of regulatory enforcement actions that jeopardize bank sponsorships should keep firms mindful of best practices, he said. As 2025 dawns and a new presidential administration takes shape, Edwards predicted it’s anybody’s guess as to which agencies will take the lead in bank-FinTech oversight (and even whether some of those agencies will exist in their present form or at all). The old days — to use a law enforcement analogy — where the cops might let someone do 72 mph in a 65-mph-zone are over. The rules haven’t necessarily changed yet, but the enforcement of the rules has changed. The United States has the safest banking system in the world; trusting that system with one’s money must remain paramount, Edwards said. Technology at scale must be a tool to enforce banking discipline in distributed banking environments, he said. However, bank and FinTech attitudes, policies and practices must also respect the discipline of safe banking. Although we may see a day when technology can have code that hardwires regulation into embedded banking and lending, we’re not there yet. Technology can help enforce rules, said Edwards, offering another analogy: His BMW will operate on autopilot so long as his hands are on the steering wheel and eyes are on the road ahead, but it will slow down and even stop if it senses Edwards is distracted. On the other end of the spectrum, a Tesla can pretty much let its driver sleep while it treks down the highway. Going Into BMW Mode Up to now, many banks and FinTechs have been in Tesla mode, Edwards said, and many players, banks included, have been driving too fast. Ingo operates decidedly like a BMW, using technology to enforce safe guardrails (even though, down the line, a bank will conduct the same oversight). Edwards said Ingo is “using technology to enforce discipline” when, for example, the Ingo Payments platform helps embed banking into a restaurant payout experience. Ingo Payments will be debuting what Edwards termed “a truly [secure and] immutable ledger” that makes sure all transactions have an unbreakable audit trail forged with cryptography. When asked about the outlook for FinTech capital next year, Edwards predicted investors and capital markets will place more emphasis on FinTechs’ profitability and sustainability rather than customer acquisition and growth rates. “The investors that are looking for sustainable long-term metrics will continue making investments,” he said. We’re also going to see more regulation around artificial intelligence, which will be necessary due to the increasing sophistication of criminals using advanced technology to impersonate legitimate people and enterprises to commit fraud, he said. Over the long term, Edwards told Webster: “The entire banking system has got to move to distributed banking and embedded banking and to use technology to do it safely. No bank is going to grow deposits simply by opening bank branches.” “Next year, it’s going to be ‘full-on’ with these regulations — and no matter what part of the business you’re in, this is going to bleed into everything a FinTech does with a bank,” he said.

Instant payments are rapidly becoming a preferred method for disbursements, revolutionizing how consumers, SMBs and enterprise senders manage their finances. And there is a consistent theme: As adoption grows, satisfaction and financial performance improve. For consumers, instant payments offer speed and convenience. These faster payments allow them to receive funds quickly, particularly when they’re in urgent need. Adoption of the method has increased 15% since January. The result has been a significant increase in consumer satisfaction. For small to mid-sized businesses (SMBs), the impact of instant payments is also profound. Data shows instant methods are transforming cash flow management, especially for microbusinesses. In fact, nearly one-third of SMBs now primarily receive ad hoc payments via instant methods, rapidly displacing traditional checks. Enterprise senders, meanwhile, are adopting instant payment technologies to optimize operational efficiency and vendor relationships. In fact, instant payment adoption for sending ad hoc payments has grown 69% since September 2023, underscoring the widespread recognition of the benefits this payment method offers. Read the December 2024 eBook to learn more about why consumers, SMBs and enterprise senders increasingly embrace instant payments. Gain insight into the growth trajectory of instant payments and their influence on the payments landscape. Learn how these faster payments are reshaping consumer expectations and experiences regarding payment speed and accessibility. Explore the ways in which these payments empower SMBs to optimize their cash flow and gain a competitive edge. Discover the strategies enterprise senders are employing to leverage instant methods for improved efficiency and vendor relationship management.