Faster payments are now table stakes. The credit unions that win will pair real-time rails with AI to deliver safer, smarter, truly member-centric experiences.
Most members don’t think about “payment rails.” They just know that money from their gig app hit their friend’s wallet in seconds, but their credit union transfer is still pending.
That gap is where credit unions lose relevance—and where faster payments and AI can bring them back to the center of their members’ financial lives.
This post builds on insights from Mark Majeske, SVP of Faster Payments at Alacriti, and connects them to a bigger theme in this series: AI for Credit Unions: Member-Centric Banking. Faster payments on their own are table stakes. The real opportunity is combining real-time rails with AI to create a safer, smarter, and more member-centric experience.
Here’s the thing about faster payments for credit unions: the technical plumbing is no longer the hard part. The challenge is strategic—choosing the right rails, managing fraud in real time, and using AI so members feel confident about speed, not anxious.
Why Faster Payments Matter for Member-Centric Banking
Faster payments are now a core member expectation, not a nice-to-have. If your credit union doesn’t offer real-time options, members quietly move high-value, high-frequency activity somewhere else.
Member expectations have shifted
Real-time experiences from P2P apps, gig platforms, and digital wallets have reset what feels “normal”:
- Members expect money to move instantly, 24/7/365.
- Billers expect real-time confirmation and fewer exception processes.
- Small businesses expect faster access to funds to manage cash flow.
For credit unions, slower payments aren’t just an inconvenience—they’re a retention risk. The moment a member moves their “daily money life” to another provider, your relationship slides toward dormancy.
Faster payments are the front door for AI
Faster payments generate high-volume, high-velocity data: who pays whom, when, through which channel, and for what patterns. That’s exactly the kind of data AI systems thrive on for:
- Real-time fraud detection
- Personalized alerts and insights
- Smarter credit and risk decisions
- Proactive financial wellness nudges
If you’re serious about AI-powered, member-centric banking, you can’t ignore the payment layer. Faster payments give you the data and context to make AI actually useful instead of a toy chatbot stuck in your mobile app.
Don’t Fear the Rails: RTP, FedNow, and Beyond
Mark Majeske’s core message is blunt: don’t be hesitant about entering the faster payments arena. The rails are here, and the lift is easier than many executives think.
The main faster payment rails
In practice, most credit unions are evaluating a mix of:
- RTP® (Real-Time Payments) – Operated by The Clearing House, live for several years, supports real-time credit transfers and rich messaging.
- FedNow® – The Federal Reserve’s instant payments service, gaining traction with financial institutions that prefer a public-rail option.
- Same Day ACH – Not truly instant, but faster than traditional ACH, often used as a bridge strategy.
- Card-based push payments – Useful in specific use cases like instant payouts, but less about core account-to-account movement.
What matters isn’t picking a single winner. It’s orchestrating these rails so members see one simple experience: “I can move money instantly when I need to, and I trust it.”
Integration is no longer the bottleneck
In the early days, real-time connectivity meant custom code, custom integrations, and a lot of late nights. That’s not the situation now.
Vendors like Alacriti offer platforms that sit between your core system and multiple payment rails, providing:
- A unified API layer instead of one-off integrations
- Centralized management of limits, rules, and workflows
- Standardized messaging and reporting
From what I’ve seen with credit unions that have already launched, the heavier lift isn’t technical. It’s governance and clarity:
- Who owns real-time payments strategy internally?
- How will you price and position faster payments?
- What risk posture are you comfortable with, and how will AI help manage it?
When those decisions are clear, implementation tends to move faster than expected.
The Fraud Reality: Why AI Is Non‑Negotiable for Faster Payments
Faster payments change the fraud equation entirely. Once money moves, it’s gone. There’s no comfortable multi-day window to unwind suspicious transactions.
That’s where AI isn’t just a nice add-on—it’s essential.
The new risk profile of real-time payments
Traditional fraud controls were built for slower rails:
- Batch processing
- Next-day reviews
- Manual exception handling
With real-time payments, those models break. Fraud prevention has to be proactive and instantaneous, not reactive.
You need systems that can:
- Score transactions in milliseconds
- Detect anomalies at the member, device, and network level
- Adjust dynamically as fraudsters change tactics
Legacy rules-only engines struggle with this. They’re brittle and overloaded with false positives, which damages member trust right when you’re trying to promote your new “instant” experience.
What an AI-powered hybrid fraud model looks like
In the podcast, Mark describes a hybrid system—that’s the right direction. The strongest setups combine:
-
Rules-based controls for hard limits
- Caps on transaction amounts and daily volumes
- Country or counterparty blocks
- Time-of-day or channel-based restrictions
-
AI/ML models for behavioral intelligence
- “Is this normal for this member?”
- “Does this device, geolocation, and pattern match historical behavior?”
- “Does this look similar to known fraud patterns across the network?”
-
Human-in-the-loop workflows for edge cases
- Real-time alerts to fraud teams
- Member confirmations through app, SMS, or IVR
- Fast decisioning queues for high-risk, high-value transactions
Here’s the key: AI doesn’t replace your fraud team; it focuses them. Instead of sifting through thousands of transactions, they investigate the 0.1–0.5% that are truly high risk.
Practical AI fraud moves credit unions can make now
If you’re in planning mode, I’d prioritize:
- Deploying real-time transaction monitoring tuned for RTP and FedNow use cases.
- Feeding your AI models with multi-channel data: online banking, mobile, contact center, card, and ACH.
- Aligning fraud operations and member experience teams so that interventions (like step-up authentication) feel supportive, not punitive, to members.
This isn’t theory. Credit unions using AI-based fraud tools on real-time rails are already seeing material drops in fraud losses and false positives, while still approving the vast majority of legitimate instant payments.
Designing Member-Centric Faster Payments with AI
Speed alone doesn’t create loyalty. Members care just as much about clarity, safety, and relevance.
AI helps convert faster payments from “a feature in the app” into a member-centric experience that feels tailored and thoughtful.
Start with what members actually want
Mark points out something a lot of institutions skip: ask what members want from their payment options.
Members don’t say, “I’d like access to RTP.” They say things like:
- “I want my paycheck early when it’s available.”
- “I want to pay my landlord and know they got it, right now.”
- “I want to move money between my accounts instantly, without fees that feel random.”
AI can help here by:
- Analyzing transaction patterns to identify common use cases (rent, utilities, gig income, family transfers).
- Segmenting members by behavior and needs rather than basic demographics.
- Powering surveys and in-app prompts that adjust based on how members actually use your services.
Use AI to simplify choices, not add complexity
Under the hood, your system may route across RTP, FedNow, or Same Day ACH. Members shouldn’t have to care.
A strong member-centric model looks like this:
- The member sees one simple option: “Send now” vs. “Standard.”
- AI quietly picks the best rail based on cost, risk, destination, and limits.
- The app clearly explains when the money will arrive and how secure it is.
When AI orchestrates rails in the background, you deliver consistency: predictable outcomes, fewer errors, and language members understand.
Real-time insights and financial wellness
This series focuses a lot on AI-powered financial wellness, and faster payments amplify that opportunity.
Once transactions clear in real time, AI can provide:
- Instant balance impact previews: “Sending $600 now will bring you within $200 of your typical month-end balance.”
- Smart alerts: “Your rent payment is higher than usual. Do you want to review your budget?”
- Proactive nudges: “We’ve noticed more gig income—want help setting aside estimated taxes?”
Those experiences feel less like “a faster payment button” and more like a digital financial coach that understands context.
Looking Ahead: Crypto, Innovation, and Strategy for 2026
Mark also highlights cryptocurrency and new payment innovations. Whether or not your credit union is ready to touch crypto directly, you should at least have a position.
Where crypto fits into a CU faster payments strategy
Right now, many members experience crypto not as an investment thesis, but as another money movement channel:
- Moving funds between exchanges and bank accounts
- Paying or getting paid for gig work
- Experimenting with stablecoins as a “faster rail”
AI can help you:
- Detect and understand crypto-related flows to and from member accounts.
- Identify members who may benefit from education and risk guidance.
- Flag suspicious patterns tied to crypto scams and fraud.
You don’t have to offer trading to be relevant—you can still be the trusted guide in a noisy landscape.
How credit unions can move from pilots to real impact
If you’re serious about member-centric AI and faster payments in 2026, here’s a practical roadmap I’ve seen work:
-
Clarify your thesis
Decide: Are faster payments primarily about member experience, operational efficiency, competitive parity, or all three? Rank them. -
Choose your rails and partners
- Commit to RTP, FedNow, or both.
- Use a connectivity partner (like Alacriti) to avoid maintaining one-off integrations.
-
Stand up AI-powered fraud and monitoring first
Before big marketing pushes, make sure AI-based real-time fraud controls are tuned and tested. -
Build one or two flagship member experiences
Examples:- “Get paid early” with real-time payroll credits.
- Real-time P2P and A2A transfers with smart alerts.
-
Measure what matters
Watch not just adoption, but:- Change in primary checking usage
- Member satisfaction and NPS around payments
- Fraud loss per $ of real-time volume
-
Iterate with AI insights
Use AI analytics to see where members drop off, which segments adopt fastest, and where confusion or friction stays high.
The reality? You don’t need to be first. You just need to be member-accurate: offering the right faster payment experiences, tuned by AI, for your membership and your risk appetite.
Where This Fits in the AI for Credit Unions Journey
Faster payments are one of the clearest bridges between AI innovation and tangible member value. They touch daily life, they generate rich data, and they demand smart risk management.
If the first posts in this series helped you see how AI shapes fraud detection, loan decisioning, and member service automation, think of faster payments as the real-time data engine that feeds all of that.
The credit unions that will win in 2026 won’t just offer RTP or FedNow. They’ll:
- Use AI to protect members in real time.
- Hide the complexity of rails behind simple, human experiences.
- Turn faster payments into a foundation for financial wellness, not just speed.
Your next step? Start the internal conversation: What would a truly member-centric faster payments experience look like for us—and how can AI make it safer, smarter, and more personal?