Setting up ACH payments for your bank or financial institution is as easy as 1-2-3 now! More and more lending agencies are now offering alternative ACH payment methods to attract more customers. We already know that some of the benefits of ACH transfer include:
- More security
- Lower processing fees
- Fast transfers
- Recurring automated payments
- Low friction
- More benefits of the ACH technology
Small business owners and individuals are actively relying on the robust ACH network to send and receive payments seamlessly. So, if you have a bank or a financial institution and wonder how to set up ACH for your customers, here’s a mini-guide that will help you get started.
How to Set up ACH Solutions for Your Customers in 7 Steps
Step 1: Find a Reliable Payment Processing Partner
Finding the right payment processing partner is undoubtedly the most important step in the process. If you find the right payment processing partner to set up the ACH solutions, they will mostly take care of the entire process at their end.
Ideally, it would be best if you relied on the Nacha-preferred partners to set up your ACH gateway. These partners stay up to date with the latest and greatest innovations in ACH technology. Also, they implement the highest levels of security for your bank account so that you can start accepting payments from your customers efficiently.
Step 2: Look for a One-Stop-Shop
The best payment processors like iCheckGateway.com run a one-stop shop for their customers. They can help you offer much more than just ACH for your customers’ payment processing needs. Instead, they can help you offer other suitable payment options like:
- Credit card processing
- SMS payments
- IVR payments
- Mobile payments, etc.
These one-stop shops often have dedicated relationship managers who can take care of all concerns and onboarding needs for you. By offering you the best possible customer service and support, they will ensure that your collection network is always up and running.
Step 3: Ask for Customizations
The most advanced payment processors cover all your customization requirements to offer your customers a seamless ACH and credit card transaction experience. They can run their operations on the back end of your online payment forms so that your customers can enjoy a frictionless payments solution while paying their bills.
Work with your partner to enable both ACH credit and ACH debit facilities for your operations beforehand. A hands-on development approach from day one will help you iron out any room for error later. The best payment processors can also help you create custom forms on your payment pages to collect extra information from your customers. They can collect and share this data to help you prevent fraud and provide insightful analytics into your business.
Step 4: Read the Terms and Agreements
Considering data security is a huge compliance issue for most banks, They need additional layers of security for their funds and their customers’ data. Therefore, before you partner up with a payment processor, read the terms and agreements of your partnership thoroughly. The most important data points that are often at the risk of exposure include routing numbers, payee details, and your customers’ account numbers.
Ideally, no one should have access to your customer data without your permission. Always rely on Nacha-preferred partners to be doubly sure that your and your customer’s data is in safe hands.
Step 5: Ask: What is in it for YOU?
So, you help a payment processor get more customers. You give them leads, so more people use their platform and help them make money. What do you get in return? Some top payment processors offer lucrative partnership opportunities to banks and financial institutions. They not only make the lives of the bank tellers and the end consumers easy but also give monetary incentives for each new customer.
Before choosing a partner, ask them if they have an incentive program to help you make more money from your existing set of customers.
Step 6: Promote Your New Payment Method
Once you have partnered with a reliable partner and your payment gateway is up and running, you can sell it to your customers as a feature. Instead of asking them to mail you paper checks or process wire transfers with heavy transaction fees every month, you can have them pay you on your website through ACH and credit card-enabled hosted payments portal.
If your partner has offered the proper levels of customizations, your customers will never even have to leave your website to make the payment. In fact, they can watch their payments getting processed while they are on the same web page.
Step 7: Enable and Educate Your Customers
In the final stage of your ACH journey, you must enable more users to use ACH for their payment processing needs. You can help them save tons of money by assisting them to transfer funds cost-effectively on the same business day!
If your customers have trouble understanding the ACH and credit card payments, these reliable partners can help them get ready for automated payments from day one.
Several banks use ACH solutions but have inefficient systems that ruin the overall end customer experience. This eBook talks about the strategies that you can use to optimize your ACH journey! Want to know more? Start your ACH journey with the best in the business!
Date originally published: January 27, 2022