IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced today that the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta's Retail Payments Office has selected the company to modernize its automated clearing house (ACH) processing platform.
A news release out Thursday morning, reported that, when conducting ACH operations, the Federal Reserve serves as the central operator ensuring electronic payments (direct deposit, bill payments) clear and settle between commercial banks.
The Fed operates one of the largest interbank ACH and cheque-clearing systems in the country based out of the Atlanta Retail Payments Office. To process the billions of ACH and check payment transactions that electronically flow through its systems annually, the Federal Reserve will implement IBM's Financial Transaction Manager.
The new IBM FTM for ACH software will allow the Federal Reserve Bank to input, process, clear, settle and provide billing/accounting functions for all ACH payments in all 12 districts across the Federal Reserve system.
Stock in the old Wall Street standby known as "Big Blue" gained 71 cents, or 0.5%, to $131.88 U.S. mid-morning Thursday, within a 52-week trading range of $131.10 to $176.30 U.S.
