REAL-TIME payments are at the heart of the innovation agenda for the majority of banks worldwide. Ninety-six percent of banks globally state that they will develop new and innovative services on top of their investment in real-time payments in 2019 and 2020, according to the Culture of Innovation Index by ACI Worldwide and research consultancy Ovum.

The research also reveals that 92% of banks globally expect to grow revenue from real-time payments, reflecting the degree to which real-time has come to underpin a new wave of product innovation and revenue opportunities.

“Our research shows that real-time payments infrastructure is either a direct enabler or closely linked with most of the new services and propositions banks are developing globally,” says Craig Ramsey, head of real-time payments, ACI Worldwide.

“The majority of banks globally are beginning to understand that real-time payments, especially when combined with open banking, have a huge potential to help banks grow revenue and attract new customers,” he adds.

Other key findings:

• Almost half of banks (47%) report that real-time payments overlay services are a top three product investment priority, and one in three (27%) rank this as their biggest single priority

• Other leading areas of investment are open banking (33%), leveraging transaction data to improve services (43%) and removing friction from the payment authentication process (48%)

• 95% of banks globally report that open banking has helped change the way they approach delivering new products and services; however, 75% still view open banking/APIs largely as a compliance issue

• 74% of banks plan to move mission-critical workloads into public cloud infrastructure either this or next year and 89% either have already made significant use of cloud or are planning to make further investments in 2019/20

“The most innovative banks recognize that investment in real-time payments infrastructure is a strong foundation for sustainable innovation,” continues Ramsey. “Real-time payments are a key building block for delivering continuous improvements in products and services for their customers,” he says.