Plaid Taps Cross River to Offer Real-Time Payments

Cross River Bank has expanded its partnership with Plaid to offer customers real-time payments.

“Expanding our relationship with Plaid to power their real-time offerings is a significant milestone in our commitment to driving financial innovation, and ensuring faster, secure, and seamless payment experiences,” Adam Goller, head of FinTech banking at Cross River, said in a news release provided to PYMNTS Thursday (July 27).

“By combining the strengths of our proprietary banking core and advanced API technology with Plaid’s expertise in financial technology tools, millions of Plaid customers will have access to their money when and where they need it.”

According to the release, Plaid chose Cross River as the first financial institution to support its real-time offering due to their existing partnership and Cross River’s proprietary API tech, which connects to multiple payment networks, including ACH, RTP, and eventually, the new FedNow system.

The companies say the first real-time offering from their partnership was Instant Payouts on Plaid Transfer, which debuted in April. 

That tool lets users send and settle funds instantly and manage bank-linked transfers and payments, “allowing businesses to obtain payment authorization, analyze risk, and move money — all within a single API,” the companies said.

The expanded partnership is happening as consumers grow more accustomed to faster payouts in most parts of their financial dealings, with research showing that 70% believe access to quick payment capabilities makes them happier with their financial institutions.

“Expanding these capabilities to all of a customer’s regular bills is thus low-hanging fruit for service providers,” PYMNTS wrote this spring. “Nearly half of consumers reported that online channels improve the payments and billing management experience, while 29% said that digital portals make their experience more convenient.”

In addition, one survey found that a little less than half of all American and Canadian companies saw a positive impact from embracing faster payments, a number that jumps to 92% when taken to a worldwide scale, due to the greater use of instant payment networks in the rest of the world.

Consumers have driven the embrace of instant payments, Miyoshi Lee, head of U.S. real-time payments at Bank of America, said in an interview with PYMNTS earlier this week. The desire for instant gratification, she said, has set the stage for instant payments to gain wide embrace in the U.S. in the months and years to come.

“We’ve allowed the U.S. real-time payments market to just evolve naturally based on basic supply and demand and client expectations,” Lee told PYMNTS. 

“But in order for this space to really take off,” she added, “we’ve needed the safety and the trust of the banking world, in order for most corporations to really sit up and pay attention.”