CHICAGO - Nearly 16 billion automated clearing house payments were made in 2006, a 14.5 percent increase from 2005, according to statistics compiled by NACHA-The Electronic Payments Association.
"Annual ACH payment volume continues to double every five years and growth is occurring across all transaction categories," said Elliott C. McEntee, president and chief executive of NACHA. "The growth of the ACH Network shows the value that financial institutions and their customers experience from ACH payments."
The nation's financial institutions originated 15.4 percent more ACH payments in 2006 than in 2005. The number of those payments was 14.98 billion, a jump of more than two billion from 2005. Inter-bank ACH payments - those sent from one FI to another - increased by 16.5 percent in 2006; on-us payments increased by 12.2 percent.
The remaining ACH payments were originated by the Federal government, which exceeded 1 billion ACH payments in a year for the first time, according to a news release. The Federal government's ACH volume was up 2.8 percent from 2005.
On the consumer side, Internet-initiated ACH payments grew by an estimated 35 percent to 1.8 billion. NACHA estimates that 85 percent of Internet-initiated ACH payments are to pay bills via companies' or billing services' Web sites; 10 percent are to transfer funds.
The total number of these business-to-business ACH payments grew to 2.3 billion in 2006, up 10.9 percent from 2005. Financial electronic data interchange - the electronic exchange of payment-related information or financial-related documents in standard formats between business partners on the ACH Network - grew by 8.7 percent in 2006.
