[Hannan]

>> Are the advances in the ACH system going to do away with fees that include a percentage component?

Didn't Stripe just debut ACH that had (admittedly an initial percentage based) pricing capped at $5? They have a $10,000 limit per payment, so maybe you that's not high enough for what you're talking about, but it does seem like things will move that way.

I will say, the higher the dollar amount, it seems like there is an increasing fraud/risk component that while not costing any more money to send/receive, needs to be considered and paid for by someone.

[jslampe]

We live in a capitalist country where no endeavor willl be undertaken without some vision for profitability. This is fair. Stakeholders in the new system, the ones that put up the money to build and support the system (Financial Institutions, providers, etc), will need to find a way to compensate themselves for their investment and prove to their share holders the fiduciary value of doing so.

From there, there are three factors that will most influence pricing.

1) Scale: how many transactions the system as a whole will process? We're all familiar with Wires and how expensive they're compared to ACH. That's because they don't have the critical mass or number of transaction ACH does. The more transactions on the system, the less financial burden the system has to assess on the end-users. 2) Market forces: How providers will price their services all depends on the market and their target customers. You mention stripe's percentage model, that's their business decision. Dwolla, a counterpoint, offers a flat fixed monthly model. The intelligence that formed the pricing models is what makes the free market so powerful. 3) Fraud: How this system mitigates fraud (through tokenization, improved fraud sharing among participants, better authorization practices, etc.) will greatly influence how much financial burden is passed on to us, the consumer. Good news is that we're starting over. LOTS OF POTENTIAL HERE!