Category: Education

The Modern Bill Pay Playbook for Operational Leaders

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Key Takeaways

  • Outdated bill pay systems create friction, late payments, and operational drag that show up in cash flow, customer satisfaction, and staff workload.
  • Modern bill pay is now a core operational capability—not just a finance or IT project—and requires cross-functional ownership from operations, billing, customer service, and finance.
  • CSG Forte BillPay gives organizations a plug-and-play, cloud-based way to deliver omnichannel bill payment experiences, branded portals, and a centralized management hub (Dex) without a heavy development lift or rip-and-replace project.
  • Operational leaders can drive measurable improvements by aligning teams around a shared roadmap, nudging payers toward self-service, and tracking real-time metrics like on-time payment rates and self-service adoption.

 

Why bill pay needs dedicated operational focus

Modern bill pay is no longer a back-office utility you can “set and forget.” It directly influences how quickly revenue comes in, how many calls hit your contact center and how customers feel every time they pay you. For operational leaders in government, utilities, property management, healthcare, and beyond, that makes bill pay a frontline experience, not just a finance workflow.

The hidden costs of outdated systems

Legacy bill pay systems do more than frustrate IT—they create real business risk and operational waste. Common symptoms include:

  • Increased late payments and cash-flow uncertainty. When customers must remember due dates, find paper statements or call to pay, it’s easy for bills to slip.
  • Higher call volumes and repetitive work. Agents spend time answering “Did my payment go through?” or taking card numbers over the phone instead of handling higher-value interactions.
  • Manual reconciliation and brittle reporting. Finance teams stitch together spreadsheets, bank files, and system reports, slowing close processes and limiting visibility into trends.
  • Operational risk and compliance pressure. When payment data is scattered across systems or handled manually, it’s harder to maintain PCI alignment, Nacha rules, and internal controls.

Industry research shows just how much room there is to improve: 54% of consumers pay at least one bill late in a given year—often due to forgetfulness rather than inability to pay—and 77% of online payments are now made directly on biller websites. If your experience is clunky or limited, you’re leaving money and goodwill on the table.

Modern consumer expectations

Your customers compare your bill pay experience to their bank, streaming services and mobile carriers—not to your peers. They expect:

  • Self-service first. Payers want to view balances, update details, and pay from any device without calling in.
  • Choice and flexibility. ACH, cards, and digital wallets; pay-now and registered flows; the ability to schedule, split, or pre-pay when cash flow is tight.
  • Speed and reassurance. Clear confirmations, receipts, and a simple way to see payment history across channels.

When bill pay doesn’t feel as intuitive as the rest of their digital life, they notice—and delinquency, disputes, and call volumes tend to rise alongside frustration.

 

Core components of modern bill pay

A truly modern bill pay platform goes beyond accepting card payments online. It brings together omnichannel payments, branded experiences, and centralized operations in one place.

Omnichannel payment acceptance

Modern bill pay meets customers where they are instead of forcing them into a single channel. With CSG Forte BillPay, organizations can accept:

  • Online and mobile payments through a responsive, branded portal
  • Phone and IVR payments with secure capture behind the scenes
  • In-person and kiosk payments that share the same processing backbone
  • Text-to-pay and digital wallets for fast, link-driven checkouts on the go

Because these channels all run on a unified platform, operations teams gain a single view of activity instead of managing multiple, disconnected tools.

Branded, customizable portals

A generic third-party payment page can undermine trust and increase abandonment. A branded, configurable portal reinforces your identity while giving customers a familiar, self-service experience.

CSG Forte BillPay supports:

  • Guest “Pay Now” flows for one-time or infrequent payers
  • Registered accounts for recurring users who want saved payment methods and history
  • Multilingual support and mobile-first design to reach broader populations
  • Configurable payment options—including schedule-pay, autopay, partial, over-pay, and pre-pay—aligned to your policies

Behind the scenes, you can customize portal URLs, landing page text, and messaging so the experience feels like a seamless extension of your website, not a hand-off to an unknown vendor.

Security and compliance by design

Payment security and compliance can’t be bolt-ons. A modern bill pay solution must capture sensitive data through PCI-compliant forms, tokenized card, and account details, and store them on secure servers, reducing the scope of your own environment.

CSG Forte BillPay is built to support PCI-aligned processing and evolving regulatory needs across card and ACH, helping you limit staff exposure to raw payment data while maintaining audit-ready records.

 

Designing payment options and channels strategically

Offering “everything, everywhere” isn’t enough. Operational leaders need to intentionally design payment rails and options to balance cost, risk, and customer preference.

Choosing the right mix

Each payment method carries trade-offs:

  • ACH/eCheck often offers lower processing costs and is ideal for larger or recurring payments.
  • Debit and credit cards give customers flexibility but can increase fees if not managed thoughtfully.
  • Digital wallets (like Apple Pay, Google Pay, or PayPal) can boost conversion on mobile but may be best targeted to specific segments or use cases.

With CSG Forte BillPay, you can configure which rails are available by program, customer type or vertical—steering high-value recurring payments toward ACH while still meeting customer expectations for card and wallet support.

Flexible payment options

Modern bill pay makes on-time payment the default by giving payers options that fit real-world cash flow:

  • Autopay enrollment tied to due dates
  • Scheduled payments aligned with pay cycles
  • Partial, over-pay, and pre-pay options within policy bounds
  • Payment plans for at-risk accounts where appropriate

In many recurring billing environments, these capabilities have helped organizations reduce late payments, smooth cash flow, and cut down on exceptions work for staff.

Removing barriers to self-service

Self-service is one of the fastest levers operational leaders can pull to reduce call volume and manual work. To accelerate adoption:

  • Remove unnecessary friction (like mandatory registration for a one-time payment).
  • Promote digital channels in statements, reminders, and frontline scripts.
  • Pair reminders with direct links to secure payment pages or text-to-pay flows, so customers can complete payment in a few taps.

When self-service is intuitive and clearly promoted, operational teams see fewer “Where do I pay?” calls and more predictable daily payment volume.

 

Coordinating billing, customer service, and finance around payments

Modern bill payment solutions are as much about alignment as it is about technology. Fragmented tools and siloed processes make it impossible to deliver a consistent payer experience or understand what’s really happening across channels.

Breaking down silos

To make bill pay work harder for the organization, operational leaders should:

  • Establish shared KPIs across billing, customer service, and finance—such as on-time payment rate, self-service adoption, call volume, and reversal rates.
  • Standardize workflows for refunds, disputes, and adjustments so customers get consistent answers regardless of channel.
  • Consolidate systems wherever possible so staff aren’t logging into different portals for each bill type, department or location.

This is where a centralized management hub becomes critical.

Centralized management with Dex

CSG Forte’s Dex platform gives operational teams a single pane of glass into payments across channels, programs and locations. With Dex, teams can:

  • View near real-time transaction activity and settlement status.
  • Access standardized reporting and exports that feed existing finance and policy systems.
  • Manage disputes, refunds, and research through consistent workflows.
  • Surface operational insights (like rising declines or channel-specific issues) without waiting on ad hoc reports.

Instead of stitching together spreadsheets, leaders get a trustworthy source of truth they can use to make decisions quickly.

 

Building a roadmap and measuring progress

Modernizing bill pay doesn’t have to be a single “big bang” project. The most successful operational leaders treat it as a repeatable roadmap with clear phases, milestones, and KPIs.

Steps to modernization

Use this playbook as a practical starting point:

  1. Assess your current bill pay experience.
    Map every way customers pay you today (online, phone, in person, mail) and document where friction, late payments, and manual work show up.
  2. Define your modernization goals.
    Clarify what “good” looks like: higher self-service adoption, lower calls per payment, improved on-time payment rate, reduced reversal rates, or better reporting for finance and operations.
  3. Design your channel and payment mix.
    Decide where ACH, cards, and wallets fit; which programs should encourage autopay; and how text-to-pay, reminders, and notifications will support your strategy.
  4. Align teams and processes.
    Bring billing, customer service, IT, and finance together around a shared rollout plan. Identify quick wins (like turning on guest checkout or adding reminders) before larger integrations.
  5. Implement with a partner that fits your stack.
    Look for plug-and-play, cloud-based solutions that integrate with your existing systems via APIs or file-based workflows—so you can modernize without rewriting your tech stack.
  6. Track, optimize and expand.
    Use real-time reporting and dashboards to monitor adoption, performance and operational metrics, then iterate—tuning options, communication, and policies over time.

Ongoing enhancements

Modernization isn’t a one-and-done launch. Customer behavior, regulatory requirements, and channel preferences will continue to evolve. To stay ahead:

  • Monitor key metrics like on-time payment rate, self-service adoption, channel mix and reversal rates.
  • Gather feedback from both customers and frontline teams to understand where friction remains.
  • Experiment with new features—such as Text to Pay, Account Updater, or recovery services—as your needs grow.

Organizations using CSG Forte’s capabilities have leveraged this kind of incremental approach to recover revenue, reduce manual work and create payment experiences that match what customers expect from modern digital brands.

 

Why CSG Forte BillPay is built for operational leaders

CSG Forte BillPay is designed specifically to help operational leaders modernize bill payments without taking on a multi-year, high-risk system overhaul.

BillPay delivers:

  • Plug-and-play, cloud-based deployment that layers on top of your existing systems instead of replacing them.
  • Omnichannel acceptance across web, mobile, IVR, text-to-pay, in-person, and kiosk channels.
  • Branded, customizable portals with guest and registered checkout, multilingual support, and flexible payment options that match your policies.
  • Centralized management through Dex, giving teams real-time visibility, reporting and reconciliation tools in one operational hub.
  • Security and compliance at scale, with PCI-aligned hosted forms, tokenization and controls that help limit internal exposure to sensitive payment data.

In 2024 alone, organizations processed approximately $1.49 billion in bill payments through CSG Forte BillPay, underscoring its role as a proven platform for high-volume, high-stakes payment operations.

 

Ready to modernize your bill pay experience?

If your bill pay operations still rely on fragmented portals, manual reconciliation, or one-size-fits-all options, now is the time to build a modern playbook that works for your teams and your customers.

Contact CSG Forte to learn how modern bill pay can transform your operations.

To see what’s possible in your environment—and how peers across government, utilities, property management, healthcare, insurance, and financial services are modernizing bill pay—request a demo.

How to Build a Donor Retention Strategy Around Better Payment Experiences

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Key Takeaways

  • Donation friction isn’t just a conversion problem; it’s a long-term retention risk that quietly pushes donors away after their first gift.
  • Every payment touchpoint—from the donation form to recurring payment retries—shapes whether supporters feel giving is easy enough to repeat.
  • Treating donations as a product to be optimized lets nonprofits grow recurring programs, cut involuntary churn and strengthen donor lifetime value.

Nonprofits talk a lot about donor retention strategy—and for good reason. Keeping an existing supporter is almost always more cost-effective than finding a new one. But many organizations overlook one of the most powerful (and fixable) drivers of donor churn: the moment someone actually tries to give.

Every appeal, story, and email is working toward a single high-intent action: a supporter choosing to make a gift. If that payment experience feels confusing, slow or insecure, they may push it off—or decide not to try again next time. If it feels effortless and trustworthy, they’re much more likely to come back, upgrade and enroll in recurring giving.

This pillar walks through how donation friction shows up, the key payment touchpoints in your donor journey and how to design your donation flows as a core part of your retention and repeat giving strategy.

 

How donor friction quietly drives churn

Most teams think of friction as a one-time conversion problem. You’ll often hear laments like, “our donation form has a high abandonment rate.” In reality, payment friction quietly erodes long-term retention.

Friction isn’t just failure; it’s effort

Friction is any extra work, confusion, or delay a supporter must endure to complete or repeat a gift. It includes:

  • Pages that take too long to load
  • Forms that are hard to use on a phone
  • Payment errors with no clear explanation
  • Unclear confirmation or missing receipts
  • Difficulty updating a card or bank account

The donor might still push through once, especially if they’re highly motivated—say, during a crisis appeal. But when they’re deciding whether to respond to your next campaign, that memory of friction becomes a reason to skip it.

Micro-frustrations chip away at trust

Even small issues add up:

  • The donation form doesn’t quite match the email or landing page brand
  • Suggested amounts feel aggressive or out of touch
  • Additional required fields (phone, full mailing address, extra questions) feel intrusive
  • The “submit” button spins for several seconds with no feedback

Individually, these seem minor. Together, they send a message: “This might be annoying again.” Retention is, at its core, the donor deciding: “Do I want to go through that experience again?”

Operational friction triggers involuntary churn

For recurring donors, a big chunk of churn is involuntary—caused by payment failures, not by a conscious decision to stop giving. Common causes:

  • Expired or reissued credit/debit cards
  • Donors changing banks
  • Insufficient funds on a particular day
  • False declines or network hiccups

If your systems don’t retry intelligently, notify donors clearly or offer easy self-service to update payment details, many of those gifts simply disappear. The donor may still care deeply about your mission—they just never get around to fixing a broken payment.

Lack of choice = silent abandonment

Supporters increasingly expect to give the way they pay for everything else: on their phones, with stored details, wallets or bank transfers. If they can’t use a method they trust—especially for recurring gifts—they’re more likely to:

  • Make a smaller, one-time gift instead of monthly
  • Shift their recurring support to another organization that feels easier
  • Abandon the process entirely during checkout

All of this shows up in your reports as “lapsed donors,” “one-time only givers” or “recurring churn.” Underneath those labels is often a simple story: the payment experience made giving harder than it needed to be.

 

Payment touchpoints along the donor journey

A strong donor retention strategy maps the entire supporter journey—and treats every payment-related moment as a retention opportunity, not just a revenue event.

1. Pre-donation: the confidence window

Before a donor ever types a card number, they’re asking:

  • “Does this look legitimate?”
  • “Is this the right place to give?”
  • “Will my gift do what they say it will?”

What to focus on:

  • Consistency and branding. Donation pages should clearly match your website, emails and campaigns.
  • Clarity of purpose. Explain—in a sentence or two—what this gift will support and what will happen next.
  • Basic reassurance. Visible security cues and privacy language (“Your payment is processed securely…”) reduce hesitation.

If this moment feels confusing or risky, some donors will never reach the form.

2. The donation form: where intent meets friction

This is the most fragile point in the journey. The supporter has decided to give; your job is to make it as easy as possible to follow through.

Retention-friendly form principles:

  • Ask only for what you truly need: Name, email and payment details are usually enough to process a gift. Everything else can be optional or captured later.
  • Design for mobile first: Use large tap targets, minimal scrolling, correct input types (numeric keypad for amounts, email keyboard for email, etc.).
  • Make recurring options clear and simple: Offer an obvious “monthly” or “make this a recurring gift” choice, with plain-language benefits.
  • Avoid surprises: If there are fees, match amounts or other options, explain them clearly and up front.

A donor who completes a first gift in 30 seconds on their phone is far more likely to repeat that behavior than someone who wrestles with a clunky form.

3. Payment method choice: meeting donors where they are

Different supporters prefer different rails:

  • Credit and debit cards
  • ACH / bank transfer
  • Digital wallets (Apple Pay, Google Pay, etc.)
  • Text-to-give or SMS links
  • Hosted portals or mobile apps

Why this matters for retention:

  • Bank accounts don’t “expire” like cards, making them more stable for recurring gifts.
  • Wallets and stored details reduce the “typing tax,” especially on mobile.
  • Familiar options can feel more trustworthy to some donors.

You don’t need every possible option. But you do need a mix that reflects your audience, with at least one low-effort, pay-by-phone choice and one stable option for recurring gifts.

4. Confirmation and receipts: locking in the “I’ll do this again” feeling

Once a donor hits “submit,” they should never wonder whether their gift actually went through.

A retention-oriented confirmation flow:

  • A clear, immediate on-screen message (“Thank you. Your gift of $X to [program] has been received.”)
  • A simple summary (amount, frequency, date, last four digits of payment method)
  • A prompt, well-formatted email receipt they can save or forward for records
  • A short, mission-focused thank-you that connects their gift to impact

This is also a prime place to:

  • Let recurring donors know how to manage or update their gift
  • Invite one simple next step (e.g., “Watch a 2-minute story about the work you’re supporting”)

Handled well, this moment reinforces: “Giving here is easy, secure and meaningful”—exactly the mindset you want at renewal time.

5. Post-donation support and self-service

Over the life of a donor relationship, questions and issues will come up:

  • “I didn’t get my receipt.”
  • “I need to change my card or bank account.”
  • “Can I update the amount or date of my recurring gift?”

If solving these creates long email threads, phone calls or confusion, supporters feel the friction—and sometimes opt out entirely.

Better approach:

  • Create a simple “Manage my giving” path from your website and emails.
  • Offer donors self-service where possible (update card, change amount or date, download receipts).
  • Back it up with responsive human support when needed.

The easier it is to fix a problem, the more likely donors are to keep their relationship going.

6. Recurring payment management: your hidden retention engine

For sustainers, a great recurring payment system is the relationship. If it works smoothly, the donor might stay with you for years. If it fails silently, you can lose them without ever having a conversation.

Key capabilities:

  • Smart retries. If a payment fails, retry automatically on a logical schedule instead of giving up after one attempt.
  • Helpful notifications. Let donors know when there’s a problem, in a friendly, non-alarming tone, with a one-click way to fix it.
  • Flexible rails. Offer the ability to switch from card to bank transfer or another method that may be more stable long term.

A mature donor retention strategy treats this “back office” work as front-line stewardship.

 

Designing donations as part of your retention strategy

To connect payment experiences directly to retention and repeat gifts, treat donations like a product you’re constantly improving—not just a form you launched once.

1. Start with clear, payment-linked retention goals

Before you change anything, define the outcomes you want that are influenced by payment experiences. For example:

  • Second-gift rate: Percent of first-time donors who give again within 12 months.
  • Recurring enrollment rate: Percent of donors who start a monthly gift.
  • Recurring survival: Average number of successful payments before a recurring gift stops.
  • Involuntary churn: Percent of recurring gifts that end because of failed payments, not donor choice.

These metrics help you tie UX and payment changes to tangible improvements in your donor retention strategy, rather than just “the form feels nicer.”

2. Map friction to data, not just anecdotes

You probably hear comments like “our form is too long” or “people don’t like creating accounts.” Those observations are useful—but you’ll make better decisions if you ground them in data.

Look for:

  • Completion and abandonment rates by device (desktop vs. mobile)
  • Error rates at each step of the form
  • Distribution of payment methods and their failure rates
  • When recurring gifts tend to fail (e.g., after card expiration)

From there, you can prioritize fixes that attack the biggest sources of friction first.

3. Redesign the donation journey around donor effort

A practical lens is donor effort: how much cognitive and physical work does someone have to do to complete and repeat a gift?

Ways to reduce effort:

  • Simplify field sets. Make address and phone optional unless they’re truly required for compliance or acknowledgment.
  • Use smart defaults. Pre-select a reasonable gift amount or cadence based on typical giving patterns, while making changes easy.
  • Limit decision points. Avoid stacking too many choices (funds, premiums, opt-ins) on a single screen.
  • Write plain-language microcopy. Replace jargon like “CVV” or “billing instrument” with short explanations.

Design goal: a supporter should be able to complete a gift on their phone, from a campaign email or text, in under a minute—without guessing, scrolling endlessly or switching devices.

4. Engineer reliability into recurring giving

Because recurring donors are so central to retention and lifetime value, it’s worth investing in payment reliability for this segment.

Focus on:

  • Proactive card and account updates. Use tools that can update card details when issuers reissue cards, and validate bank details when first used or changed.
  • Thoughtful dunning (failed-payment outreach). When a payment fails, send clear, empathetic messages that assume good intent and make it easy to fix the issue.
  • Alternative rails. Offer bank transfers or other lower-failure-rate methods as an option, especially for larger recurring gifts.

Communicate these improvements as benefits to donors: “We’ve updated our systems so your monthly gift can continue without interruption, and your details remain secure.”

5. Align fundraising, finance and technology around the donor

Payment experiences sit at the intersection of fundraising, finance and IT. If these teams work in silos, donors feel it:

  • Finance enforces rules that add friction without understanding donor behavior
  • Fundraising teams launch new campaigns on different forms with inconsistent experiences
  • IT implements tools without clear UX requirements

To make donations a core part of your retention strategy:

  • Bring all three groups into shared planning for donation flows and platforms.
  • Agree on a small set of shared metrics (e.g., recurring churn, payment success, average days to resolve a donor payment issue).
  • Treat major changes—new payment methods, redesigned forms, new portals—as cross-functional initiatives with clear owners.

Retention improves when donors experience your organization as one coordinated whole, not a patchwork of disconnected systems.

6. Test, learn and iterate like a product team

Finally, bake iteration into your approach:

  • Run A/B tests on key elements (field count, button copy, default gift amounts, recurring toggle placement).
  • Time changes so you can compare performance before and after big campaigns (e.g., year-end, GivingTuesday).
  • Gather qualitative feedback from real donors—short surveys on the confirmation page can reveal pain points you’d never see in analytics.

Over time, small, continuous improvements to the payment experience compound into:

  • Higher first-time conversion rates
  • More donors choosing recurring gifts
  • Fewer failed payments and lapsed sustainers
  • Stronger, more predictable revenue you can invest in your mission

 

Bringing it together

A resilient donor retention strategy is built on more than great stories and thank-you emails. It depends on whether giving to your organization consistently feels:

  • Easy
  • Secure
  • Respectful of a donor’s time and data
  • Emotionally rewarding

By treating donation and payment experiences as core retention levers—not just back-end plumbing—you can reduce silent churn, grow your recurring base and make it far more likely that first-time supporters become lifelong partners in your mission.

Ready to build lasting donor relationships? Start optimizing your donation experience today. CSG Forte can help you set up your merchant account, grow your recurring base, reduce friction, and turn one-time supporters into lifelong champions for your cause.

Reach out to one of our nonprofit payments experts today or sign up to get started.

 

FAQs

Q1. What is a donor retention strategy in the context of payments?

A donor retention strategy is a coordinated plan to keep supporters giving over time. On the payment side, that means designing donation forms, methods, confirmations and recurring management so that giving is consistently easy, trustworthy and repeatable.

Q2. How do I know if payment friction is hurting our donor retention?

Look for signs like high mobile abandonment on donation forms, a large share of “one-and-done” donors, frequent payment errors, and recurring gifts that stop after a few months due to failed payments. These patterns often indicate that the payment experience, not donor intent, is driving churn.

Q3. Which payment methods are best for recurring donors?

Cards are familiar and convenient, but they expire and are reissued. Bank transfers (ACH or similar) often have lower failure rates over time. The best mix typically includes both, plus mobile-friendly options like digital wallets, so donors can choose what feels easiest and most trustworthy.

Q4. How often should nonprofits review and update their donation experience?

At minimum, review your donation flows annually and before major fundraising seasons. Many organizations benefit from a lighter quarterly audit to check for new friction points, mobile issues, or opportunities to streamline fields and add relevant payment options.

Q5. What metrics should we track to connect payment improvements to retention?

Track donation completion rate (by device), recurring enrollment rate, recurring payment success rate, involuntary churn (failed payments), and second-gift rate within 6–12 months. When you make payment UX changes, compare these metrics before and after to see the impact.

Straight Through Processing for Virtual Card Reimbursements: A Practical Guide for Physician Groups

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Key Takeaways

  • Discover how CSG Forte Straight Through Processing (STP) can automate and streamline virtual card physician payments, minimizing manual tasks, and accelerating cash flow.
  • Learn why traditional “last mile” payment processes slow down reimbursements and create administrative headaches for physician groups.
  • Find out how hospital-owned and mid-size practices can leverage STP for faster insurance reimbursement without overhauling their core systems.

Hospital and physician group leaders have spent years digitizing registration, eligibility, coding, and claims. Yet many physician payments still move through a surprisingly manual “last mile” between “claim approved” and “cash posted and reconciled.”

That last mile is often built around virtual cards that arrive by mail or require portal logins, followed by:

  • Staff keying card numbers into terminals.
  • Teams re-keying amounts and adjustments into practice management or electronic health record (EHR) systems.
  • Finance matching deposits to remittance files days or weeks later.

On paper, these are “digital” payments. In reality, they behave like a paper-era process that slows cash, increases risk, and consumes scarce revenue cycle capacity.

This guide explains how Straight Through Processing (STP) for Optum virtual card reimbursements works, why it matters for faster insurance reimbursement, and how hospital-owned and mid-size physician groups can adopt it without replacing their core clinical or billing platforms.

 

Why the “last mile” still breaks physician payments

From a distance, your payer mix may look familiar: Medicare, Medicaid, commercial, and self-pay. But the cash dynamics behind that mix have shifted.

High-deductible plans and rising out-of-pocket costs mean more of each encounter’s total charge falls to the patient after insurance. Those balances are harder to predict and collect, so health systems rely even more on timely insurer reimbursements to stabilize working capital.

When that “reliable” side of revenue is tied up in manual virtual card workflows, you see:

  • Variable time to cash: It can take 30–90 days from claim approval to deposit when mail, batching, and manual posting are involved.
  • Persistent admin burden: Staff open envelopes, log into portals, key cards, re-key into billing systems, and resolve mismatches across locations and specialties.
  • Fragmented control: Each clinic or specialty may handle remittances differently, making it hard for finance to see total cost, risk, and performance.
  • Expanded compliance scope: The more people touch card data and remittance details, the broader your Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) and audit footprint becomes.

Against this backdrop, it’s no longer enough to focus only on patient collections. To support margin and mission, physician group administrators, CFOs, and clinical leaders need physician payments from payers to move predictably and electronically, end-to-end.

 

How virtual card reimbursements work today

For many groups that receive virtual card reimbursements, the current-state process looks like this:

  1. “Payment available”
    The payer issues a virtual card for an adjudicated claim and sends a notice via mail or portal.
  2. Retrieval
    Staff open envelopes or log into portals to retrieve card numbers and remittance details.
  3. Processing the card
    Card details are keyed into a point-of-sale (POS) or virtual terminal like a retail transaction.
  4. Matching remittance
    Teams manually match deposits to 835s, PDFs, or portal remittances.
  5. Posting
    Payments and adjustments are re-keyed into the EHR, practice management or central business office system.
  6. Reconciliation
    Finance reconciles bank activity to the GL, by payer, location, and specialty.

Every step introduces delay and the potential for error.

Across thousands of payments, this workflow drives up unit cost for each dollar collected and weighs down your revenue cycle team.

 

What is Straight Through Processing in healthcare?

STP for healthcare is a virtual-card-based payment automation service, built by CSG Forte in collaboration with Optum Financial, that allows healthcare providers to receive insurance reimbursements and patient payments (via their payers) in about one day, moving from initiation to completion without manual card handling or re-keying.

In the Optum model, STP focuses on the last mile of the payment, not the claim decision itself:

  • Optum still adjudicates claims and generates virtual cards (VCCs) for approved amounts.
  • Instead of mailing those card details, Optum transmits VCC data and remittance information electronically to CSG Forte over secure, encrypted channels.
  • CSG Forte processes those virtual cards and deposits funds directly into the provider’s bank account, typically the next business day.
  • Payment and remittance data appear together in a reconciliation platform (Dex) and can feed your revenue systems for posting and reporting.

From your team’s point of view, insurer and eligible patient payments simply arrive as electronic deposits with aligned remittance detail—no card numbers to handle and far fewer steps to manage.

 

How STP changes Optum virtual card reimbursements

Before STP: manual, card-by-card workflows

  • Virtual cards arrive via mail or require portal retrieval.
  • Staff key card numbers into terminals and re-key into billing systems.
  • Posting and reconciliation lag behind deposits.

With STP: a straight-through, electronic flow

Inside Optum’s STP model for physician payments:

  1. Claim is approved.
    Optum generates a virtual card for the approved amount, just as it does today.
  2. Optum sends VCC + remittance data to CSG Forte.
    Card details and associated remittance information move over encrypted channels—no paper, no portals.
  3. CSG Forte processes the card.
    Funds are deposited into the provider’s bank account—typically within one business day of approval instead of 30–90 days after a mailed card.
  4. Payment and remittance arrive together.
    Payment and 835-style remittance data appear in Dex and can be integrated with your EHR, practice management or RCM system for posting and reconciliation.
  5. Teams manage exceptions, not transactions.
    Most payments clear straight-through; staff work a smaller, focused queue of true exceptions.

The result is one integrated path from “approved” to “deposited and visible”—a critical building block for faster insurance reimbursement and more predictable cash flow.

 

Business impact for physician groups

STP is about more than getting paid a bit faster. For hospital-affiliated and independent physician groups, it supports a set of practical outcomes that matter at the board and clinic level.

1) Faster access to cash

Moving from up to 60–90 days of mail-based reimbursement to roughly one day after approval has a direct impact on days in accounts receivable and days cash on hand. This can:

  • Smooth month-to-month liquidity swings
  • Reduce reliance on short-term borrowing
  • Support more confident decisions about staffing, capital projects and service expansion

2) Lower administrative burden

With STP, your teams no longer need to:

  • Open envelopes and sort mail for virtual cards
  • Log into multiple portals and key card numbers
  • Manually match deposits to remittances across systems

Dex and your integrated systems consolidate payment and remittance data. Staff focus on exceptions instead of high-volume data entry—critical in a labor market where revenue cycle and billing roles are difficult to staff and retain.

3) Reduced fraud and loss exposure

Automated virtual card processing reduces the surface area for:

  • Intercepted mail and stolen card details
  • Card-testing on exposed numbers
  • Misapplied or misplaced payments that never make it to your deposit account

Keeping card data inside encrypted, access-controlled systems improves traceability and lowers loss risk.

4) Stronger security and compliance posture

CSG Forte’s healthcare payment capabilities, including STP, are designed to operate within HIPAA, PCI DSS, and HITRUST-aligned frameworks. Because your staff are no longer handling card numbers directly:

  • Your PCI scope is narrower and easier to manage
  • Your audit trail for payer remittances becomes more consistent
  • Security policies can focus on fewer, better-protected systems

5) Alignment with your broader automation strategy

Industry research continues to highlight a multi-billion-dollar savings opportunity from automating administrative processes across healthcare finance. STP fits neatly into that roadmap:

  • It runs behind the scenes with existing EHR and practice management systems—no “rip and replace.”
  • It tackles a high-volume, high-friction slice of revenue quickly.
  • It sets a pattern you can extend to other payment flows over time.

 

What still requires human judgment—and why that’s a strength

Receiving payments “straight through” does not mean “without humans.” It means your people apply their expertise where it matters most.

Common exceptions include:

  • Amount mismatches or unexpected adjustments
  • Missing or incomplete remittance data
  • Configuration issues (wrong bank account, entity or specialty mapping)

A clear ownership model helps:

  • Revenue cycle manages exception queues and posting quality.
  • Finance approves write-offs, reclasses, and escalations.
  • IT / RCM addresses recurring configuration and integration issues.

This structure keeps clinical and operational leaders confident that automation is improving control, not bypassing it.

 

Governance, risk, and audit readiness

Speed matters—but so does control. Within the Optum + CSG Forte STP model, governance is built around four pillars:

  • Approval flows: Finance decides which payer programs and virtual card streams enter STP and how funds route by specialty, entity, and location.
  • Audit trail: You can trace each payment from Optum transaction ID to virtual card, bank deposit, and GL entry, with logs of user actions on exceptions and configuration changes.
  • Exception routing and roles: Clear queues and role-based access support segregation of duties, reducing the risk of fraud or mis-posting.
  • Compliance alignment: STP is designed to operate within HIPAA, PCI DSS, and HITRUST expectations and to respect your organization’s data governance approach.

 

How to measure success: speed, effort, control

To demonstrate impact and keep leadership aligned, track metrics in three categories.

1) Speed (cash and posting)

  • Days from claim approval (or “payment available”) to bank deposit
  • Lag from deposit to posted and reconciled payment
  • Reduction in days in A/R for Optum virtual card flows

2) Effort (labor and exceptions)

  • Average minutes of staff time per payment, end-to-end
  • Exception rate (% of payments needing manual rework)
  • Size and age of unapplied cash and unmatched remittances

3) Control (visibility and audit)

  • Ability to trace Optum transaction ID to deposit and GL entry
  • Consistency of workflows and controls across locations and specialties
  • Findings and remediation items from internal or external audits related to payer payments

These metrics help quantify the value of faster insurance reimbursement and reduced manual work in language that resonates with executives, physicians, and board members alike.

 

Ready to unlock faster, safer, more predictable physician payments?

Virtual card reimbursements may carry a modern label, but the workflows around them often feel like anything but. Mail, portals, and manual posting introduce avoidable delay and risk at a time when physician groups cannot afford volatility in cash flow.

CSG Forte’s Straight Through Processing gives hospital-owned and independent physician groups a practical way to:

  • Replace mailed virtual cards with automated deposits.
  • Shorten reimbursement cycles from months to about a day.
  • Reduce fraud and compliance risk tied to manual card handling.
  • Free staff from low-value, repetitive work and redeploy them to higher-impact activities.

Don’t miss your chance to transform your reimbursement strategy and reduce administrative headaches.

For immediate access to innovative solutions and expert guidance, visit the CSG Forte and Optum Financial partner page now. Reach out to connect with specialists who are ready to support your journey and help you achieve operational excellence with confidence.

 

FAQs

1) What is Straight Through Processing (STP) in healthcare?

STP is a payment automation process that allows healthcare providers to receive payments from insurance companies and certain patient payments (via insurers) in about one day, directly into their bank accounts, without manual card handling or re-keying.

2) Does STP replace Optum virtual cards?

No. In the Optum model, the payer still generates a virtual card for each approved reimbursement or patient balance. STP changes what happens next by transmitting card and remittance data electronically to CSG Forte for automated processing and deposit.

3) How does STP support faster insurance reimbursement?

When mail and batching are involved, 30–90 days from approval to deposit is common. With STP, processing time can drop to as little as one day between approval and direct deposit, with auto-posting where enabled.

4) What work does STP remove for physician group staff?

STP is designed to eliminate manual card keying and duplicate data entry into billing systems for enrolled Optum virtual card streams and to reduce manual matching work by aligning payments and remittances.

5) What still requires human review?

Exceptions such as amount mismatches, missing remittance data and configuration issues still need human judgment, with clear ownership across revenue cycle, finance and IT/RCM teams.

6) Is STP compliant with healthcare security requirements?

Optum and CSG Forte position STP as PCI Compliant, HiTrust Certified, and HIPAA Compliant, built to meet healthcare-grade security and privacy standards.

7) Can we choose ACH instead of virtual cards with STP?

In the current Optum STP model, payments are processed exclusively via virtual credit card, with CSG Forte handling those cards and depositing funds into your accounts. Separately, you can request standard EFT/ERA via ACH where payers support it; many organizations pursue ACH and STP together.

8) What does pricing look like for STP?

Internal training materials illustrate that STP is priced using an interchange-plus model, with a combination of network fees, processor costs and a flat per-transaction charge—often at a lower effective rate than typical virtual card processing for large remittances. Your CSG Forte team can walk through specifics for your organization.

Modernizing Insurance Payments: Lower Admin Burden, Higher Retention

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Key Takeaways

  • Legacy, fragmented insurance payment stacks create unnecessary manual work, higher operating costs, and frustrating payment experiences that quietly erode retention.
  • Modern, omnichannel payment platforms let insurers offer ACH, card, and digital wallet options across web, mobile, IVR, text-to-pay, and in-person channels.
  • A phased modernization roadmap helps insurers improve collections and retention while reducing disruption.

Insurance leaders are under pressure from every direction. Claims costs are rising, new competitors are entering the market, and policyholders now benchmark every interaction against the best digital experiences they have in banking, retail and other services.

Yet many insurers still rely on aging billing systems, paper-heavy workflows, and a patchwork of vendors to collect premiums and pay claims. That gap shows up most clearly in payments.

When it is hard to pay a premium, confusing to understand a bill or frustrating to update a payment method, policyholders notice. They call the contact center, delay payment, or quietly move their business elsewhere. Internally, billing and finance teams spend hours each week reconciling files, chasing late payments, and fixing errors that never should have happened.

Modern insurance payment solutions change that dynamic. By upgrading how you present, accept, and reconcile payments, you can reduce manual work, improve on-time collections, and deliver the kind of experience that keeps policyholders around longer.

 

Why legacy insurance payment workflows are breaking down

1) Siloed systems between billing, policy admin, and claims

Most insurers did not set out to build a complex payment stack; it evolved over time. A core policy administration system here, a standalone online payment portal there, and a separate provider for refunds or claim disbursements. Agencies and managing general agents (MGAs) often use their own tools on top.

The result is a patchwork of portals, files, and vendors that do not talk to each other cleanly. Policyholders might:

  • Receive a paper bill for one line of business and a digital notice for another.
  • Pay premiums in one portal but receive claim payments by check.
  • Call the contact center because they are not sure whether a payment went through.

Internally, this fragmentation makes it hard to see a complete payment history or even answer a simple question like, “Did this policyholder pay on time?”

2) Manual work and exceptions that never end

When payments are scattered across systems and channels, manual work expands to fill the gaps. Billing and finance teams:

  • Download files from multiple portals and import them into finance systems.
  • Manually reconcile premiums, refunds, and agency commissions.
  • Re-key payment data from one system into another.
  • Track down exceptions when an online payment does not match what is in the policy system.

These tasks are painful in normal times and almost unmanageable during peak cycles like renewals or major storms. They also contribute directly to higher operating costs and staff burnout.

3) Growing gap between policyholder expectations and reality

Across industries, customers expect simple, digital, self-service experiences, from getting a quote to managing claims. Insurers must provide clear, personalized communication across preferred channels to build trust.

Yet many insurance payment experiences still involve:

  • Limited options—card only, no ACH insurance payment option for larger or recurring premiums.
  • Portals that are hard to use on mobile devices.
  • Few or no proactive reminders or confirmations.
  • Paper checks for claim payments when policyholders would prefer digital disbursements.

Because bills and payments are often the most frequent touchpoints between a policyholder and their insurer, clunky experiences quickly undermine even the best underwriting and marketing.

 

The hidden cost: churn, leakage, and staff burnout

Payment friction rarely shows up as a line item on a P&L, but it affects core metrics:

  • Lapsed policies when a premium fails and the insurer cannot re-engage quickly.
  • Increased call center volume as policyholders call to confirm balances or make payments by phone.
  • Slower collections and more write-offs when billing teams cannot keep up with manual work.
  • Staff attrition when billing and finance roles are dominated by low-value, repetitive tasks.

In a market where combined ratios are under pressure and insurance companies compete on experience, these “hidden” costs add up quickly.

 

What modern insurance payment solutions look like

Modern insurance payment solutions are built to simplify interactions “every step of the way,” from quote to claim.

They share a few key traits.

Omnichannel, policyholder-friendly payment experiences

Policyholders expect to pay however and wherever it is easiest for them. Modern insurance payment portals should support:

  • Web and mobile portals that are easy to use on any device.
  • IVR and contact-center payments for customers who prefer to call.
  • Email or text-to-pay notifications that let customers complete a payment in a few taps.
  • In-person or agent-assisted payments using POS devices—all backed by the same platform.

The key is consistency. Whether someone pays online, via text or over the phone, they should see the same balance, options and confirmation. That consistent omnichannel experience is central to your broader insurance story.

Support for card and ACH insurance payments

Card payments are familiar and convenient, but they can be expensive at higher ticket sizes and more prone to failures when cards expire or limits are reached. Automated Clearing House (ACH) insurance payments add important flexibility:

  • Lower processing costs for large or recurring premiums.
  • Less susceptibility to card expiration.
  • A good fit for policyholders who are comfortable linking their bank accounts.

A modern platform lets insurers and agencies offer both options, design preferred behaviors (for example, encouraging ACH for large annual premiums) and manage rails from a single place.

Unified platform for policy, claim and agency payments

Instead of separate systems for inbound premiums, outbound claims and agency remittances, modern insurance payment solutions provide a unified platform that can support:

  • Direct-to-carrier premium payments through branded portals.
  • Insurance agency payment processing and remittances (“payment solutions insurance agency”).
  • Select digital claim disbursements and refunds, where electronic options make sense.

This “one-stop” approach makes it easier to consolidate vendors, integrate with existing systems, and see payment performance across the journey.

Security, compliance, and risk management baked in

Payments are a regulated, high-risk domain. Insurers need partners that:

  • Operate PCI-compliant platforms and protect card data via tokenization and encryption.
  • Align with Nacha rules for ACH transactions.
  • Provide strong data protection controls and clear shared-responsibility models.

CSG Forte BillPay captures sensitive payment data through PCI-compliant forms and stores it in tokenized form on secure servers, helping reduce PCI scope without sacrificing security.

While the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (better known as HIPAA) is specific to healthcare, it serves as a benchmark for the rigorous security and compliance standards CSG Forte applies across regulated industries.

 

Payment friction as a quiet churn driver

Most insurers invest heavily in pricing, underwriting and marketing. Yet payment friction can quietly undermine all of that work.

Examples include:

  • A premium payment fails because a card expired; the customer misses the notice and the policy lapses.
  • A policyholder has to call in every time they want to pay, waits on hold and starts to question whether staying is worth the hassle.
  • Renewal notices are unclear about amounts and due dates, leading to accidental non-payment.

The insurance industry is particularly vulnerable to churn because a failed payment can quickly translate into lost coverage. Reducing payment friction also drives churn down, and better payment experiences support retention goals no matter what industry your company serves.

 

 

Treat payments as strategic, not secondary

Insurance payment modernization is not just a technology upgrade. It is a strategic shift that reduces manual work, improves collections and supports the kind of policyholder experience that keeps customers around longer.

By moving from fragmented, manual workflows to unified, digital-first insurance payment solutions, you can:

  • Free billing and finance teams from low-value tasks.
  • Offer card and ACH insurance payment options that fit real policyholder needs.
  • Equip agencies and partners with better tools to collect and remit payments.
  • Build trust with clear, convenient, consistent payment experiences across channels.

CSG Forte BillPay is a unified, omnichannel platform that supports web, mobile, IVR, text-to-pay, in-person and agent-assisted payments. With support for ACH, card, and digital wallet payments—including recurring, scheduled, partial and over-payments—BillPay helps insurers systematically reduce manual work, improve payment completion rates and deliver a consistent, branded experience across every channel.

Here are several CSG Forte features you’ll benefit from:

  • PCI DSS Level 1 certification that supports tokenization and end-to-end encryption and aligns with NACHA rules for ACH transactions.
  • Cloud-based reporting and reconciliation tools that provide near real-time visibility and standardized processes across all payment channels.
  • For agencies and MGAs, CSG Forte enables centralized, branded payment acceptance and remittance, with unified reporting and embedded payment options for agency software platforms.

If you are ready to see what modern insurance bill pay could look like for your organization, contact our payments team to discuss your roadmap and see CSG Forte BillPay in action.

 

Frequently asked questions

What payment methods does CSG Forte BillPay support?

CSG Forte BillPay supports credit and debit cards, ACH/eCheck and leading digital wallets such as Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal and Venmo, so policyholders can pay using the method that’s most convenient for them.

This mix of rails lets insurers balance convenience with cost—e.g., steering larger or recurring premiums toward ACH when it makes sense.

How does BillPay help reduce manual work for insurance billing teams?

BillPay centralizes bill presentment and payment capture in a hosted, PCI-compliant portal, then delivers standardized payment files and cloud-based reports that drop into existing finance and policy systems, reducing manual posting and reconciliation effort.

Features like recurring/autopay, scheduled payments and automated reminders cut down on one-off outreach and exceptions work, especially around renewals and late payments.

Is CSG Forte BillPay PCI DSS Level 1 certified?

CSG Forte operates as a PCI Level 1–certified service provider, and BillPay uses PCI-compliant hosted forms, tokenization and encryption to protect card data and reduce your PCI scope.

That means sensitive payment information is captured and stored in CSG Forte’s secure environment, rather than in your internal systems.

Can BillPay integrate with my existing policy and claims systems?

Yes. CSG Forte provides REST APIs and flexible file-based integrations so BillPay can work alongside your existing policy, billing and claims platforms rather than replacing them.

You can exchange payment status, settlement and reconciliation data with core systems to keep balances, coverage status, and communications in sync.

What metrics should insurers track to measure payment modernization success?

Key metrics to track include:

  • On-time premium payment rate, by channel and payment method (card vs. ACH).
  • Decline and failure rates for card and ACH, plus recovery after retries or reminders.
  • Digital adoption: share of payments through self-service channels (web, mobile, IVR, text) versus checks or call center.
  • Billing- and payment-related call volume, especially around due dates and renewals.
  • Lapse/cancellation rates where payment issues contributed, to tie payment experience directly to retention outcomes.

5 Ways Straight Through Processing Fixes Healthcare Cash Flow Fast

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When margins are thin and more revenue depends on patient responsibility, you can’t afford to wait 60–90 days for cash that’s already been approved.

CSG Forte’s Straight Through Processing (STP) turns mailed virtual cards and manual keying into next-day deposits with clean remittance data—without ripping out your EHR or practice management systems.

Here are 5 key points healthcare finance leaders need to know.

 

1. Traditional virtual card workflows are “digital” in name only

  • Payers mail virtual card letters to your practice or lockbox.
  • Staff open envelopes, key card numbers into terminals, and chase remits across systems.
  • Deposits and reconciliation can lag weeks or months behind approval.

 

2. Your payer mix may look familiar on paper, but the cash story has changed

  • High-deductible plans shift more of each encounter to the patient.
  • Patient-owed balances are harder to predict, harder to collect, and more likely to be written off.
  • That makes every predictable insurer dollar more important.

 

3. Mail-based virtual card workflows eat up time you don’t have

  • Opening and sorting envelopes.
  • Keying card numbers into terminals and systems.
  • Manually matching deposits and remittances days or weeks later.

 

4. Every mailed card is another exposure point

  • Intercepted letters and stolen card details.
  • Card testing fraud on exposed numbers.
  • Misapplied or lost payments that never reach your operating account.

 

5. Many “automation” initiatives stall because

  • They require invasive changes to core systems.
  • Payers can’t keep their existing adjudication processes and virtual card models.

 

Modern healthcare organizations can’t leave cash flow to chance

Not with:

  • Thin margins and uneven recovery.
  • Rising patient responsibility and falling collection rates.
  • Tight labor markets in revenue cycle and billing.
  • Existing HR, practice management, and RCM systems aren’t compatible.

 

That’s where Straight Through Processing comes in.

Behind the scenes, CSG Forte STP:

  • Turns both insurer reimbursements and payer-portal patient payments into next-day deposits, with each virtual card routed electronically, processed, and posted with remittance data already attached.
  • Consolidates these flows on a single healthcare-ready payments platform so your teams stop opening envelopes and keying card numbers; instead, they can work from clean, centralized data for posting, reconciliation, and reporting.
  • Keeps card data inside encrypted, access-controlled systems with HIPAA-, PCI DSS- and HITRUST-aligned controls like role-based access, MFA and IP whitelisting, shrinking your PCI footprint while strengthening audit trails.
  • Delivers faster, more predictable cash, less fraud and loss exposure, and a modernized revenue cycle you can scale without ripping and replacing your core systems.

If you’re ready to accelerate every predictable dollar while protecting your mission, it’s time to bring STP into your healthcare payment workflows.

Enroll in Straight Through Processing with CSG Forte today or contact us to see how it fits into your existing payer and revenue cycle stack.

Want to go deeper on how STP works across insurer and patient payment flows, security and reconciliation? Read our full guide to Straight Through Processing for healthcare finance leaders for more detail on workflows, compliance and implementation considerations.

Nonprofit Payments Can’t Be a Black Box: Why Owning Your Merchant Account Matters

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Earlier this month, the nonprofit sector got a painful reminder that “set it and forget it” donation infrastructure can quickly become a single point of failure.

Coverage from sources like Nonprofit News Feed and restructuring analysts chronicled what happened at Flipcause: Delayed remittances to nonprofits, a cease-and-desist order from the California Department of Justice, its payment processor’s termination of services and freeze of roughly $2.2 million in funds, and a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing in Delaware with tens of millions in donations owed to thousands of nonprofits.

In those accounts, the sole payment processor is at the center of the dispute, holding a commingled pot that included both Flipcause’s operating funds and donor money earmarked for nonprofits. When that pooled account was frozen, donor dollars were effectively locked inside a processor–platform dispute, and organizations that thought they were “just using a fundraising tool” suddenly found themselves in a bankruptcy case.

The underlying pattern matters more than any single name. In many platform-centric models:

  • The platform, not the nonprofit, is the merchant of record—often through a single large processor.
  • Donor funds are pooled under the platform’s merchant ID, then remitted downstream on the platform’s schedule.
  • Payout timing and holds are governed by the platform’s processor and risk policies, not the nonprofit’s.

When that platform experiences processor issues, regulatory action, or an operational failure, thousands of organizations just like yours can feel the shock at once—often with little warning.

Whatever the ultimate outcomes in court in nonprofit funds mismanagement and potential fraud cases like the one Flipcause is the subject of, the operational lesson is immediate: if your fundraising flow depends on someone else’s rails, you’re exposed to payout interruptions, policy changes, processor actions, and compliance shocks you don’t control.

This blog outlines a practical framework describing why nonprofits should own their merchant account. It’s assurance that donor gifts and monthly contributions keep moving even when the landscape shifts.

 

When “convenient” becomes “vulnerable”

Nonprofits run on trust—and cash flow. If donations slow down, programs pause. If gifts are declined or mishandled, supporters don’t just abandon a transaction; they lose confidence in the organization’s ability to steward their financial support.

But many donation stacks were built for speed, not resilience, and that leaves nonprofits vulnerable to several common risks.

  • Funds held outside your control: When a third party sits between the supporter and your organization, gifts can sit in an account you don’t own. This creates “float” risk, delayed payouts, and opaque timing for when dollars actually hit your bank.
  • Single points of failure: If a platform’s payment processor cuts ties, tightens risk thresholds, or places holds, your donation flow can be disrupted overnight. In the Flipcause situation, public reporting references impacts tied to processor actions—including the payment processor’s decision to terminate services and freeze funds. This is a vivid illustration of how quickly a platform–processor relationship can cascade into missed payouts for nonprofits.
  • Compliance expectations are tightening: New rules—such as expanded monitoring requirements for automated clearing house (ACH) or eCheck fraud and card-network programs that scrutinize excessive fraud and disputes—raise the bar on how platforms and merchants manage payment risk. What used to count as “commercially reasonable” controls are no longer enough as regulators and networks formalize monitoring and enforcement.
  • Fraud is accelerating and industrialized: Industry research projects cumulative online payment fraud losses in the tens of billions each year. A large majority of organizations already report attempted or actual payments fraud, and attackers are now using automation and AI to test cards, take over accounts, abuse refunds, and probe weak defenses at scale.

The takeaway: if you can’t see and control the payment lifecycle end to end, you’re playing defense with one hand tied behind your back. “Convenient” becomes “vulnerable” when a single third party controls both your merchant identity and your fraud posture.

 

Resilience, predictability, and donor confidence

For nonprofits, successful results aren’t gained simply by reducing fraud losses. Success lives in the operational outcomes that keep your mission funded and your supporters engaged. When you combine ownership of your merchant account with modern fraud protection, you’re aiming at outcomes like:

More predictable cash flow: Fewer surprise holds, fewer payout mysteries, and fewer lastminute scrambles to reconcile what cleared. When failure scenarios do occur—nonsufficient fund returns, expired cards, or bank issues—you can layer in services such as automated recovery and card-on-file updating to reduce involuntary churn and keep recurring gifts on track.

Better donor experience: Fewer unnecessary declines, fewer confusing error messages, and donation flows that feel fast, mobile-friendly, and trustworthy. Supporters can give using the methods they prefer—cards, ACH/eCheck, digital wallets, or recurring monthly gifts—without running a gauntlet of clumsy fraud checks.

Stronger governance: Clearer accountability for payment operations, reporting, and oversight. As regulations and platform rules tighten, you can show boards, auditors, and major donors that you understand where money flows, how it’s protected, and how quickly issues are identified and escalated.

Protection that scales: As donor volumes grow and campaigns expand, your payment platform should support high-volume, low-latency monitoring with always-adapting models and configurable thresholds. That means your fraud defenses can keep pace as your supporter base and fundraising channels grow—without requiring a proportional increase in manual review work.

The nonprofit sector doesn’t need more cautionary tales to prove the point. The urgency is already here: fraud is rising, regulation is tightening, and donation interruptions tend to hit at the worst possible time.

 

Rethinking the foundation, not just the form

At a glance, donation pages and buttons may all look similar. The critical difference lies underneath:

  • Who is the merchant of record? Is it you or a third-party platform?
  • Where do funds actually sit between authorization and settlement?
  • Who is responsible for fraud monitoring, compliance, and payout decisions?
  • How quickly can you adapt if a processor, platform, or bank changes course?

If your fundraising platform can’t give you clear answers on ownership, transparency, and modern fraud defense—or if the answers leave you exposed—it’s time to rethink the foundation, not just the form.

That doesn’t have to mean abandoning the tools your team loves. It does mean adopting a payments architecture where your organization owns the merchant account, has end-to-end visibility into the payment lifecycle, and can layer in AI-powered fraud protection that fits your risk posture and mission.

If you want to pressure-test your current setup, CSG Forte can help you:

  • Map where donations and monthly gifts actually travel today.
  • Identify single points of failure in payout flows and processor relationships.
  • Evaluate your fraud controls across ACH, card, and digital channels.

Talk with CSG Forte about setting up a dedicated merchant account for your nonprofit to protect supporter gifts, strengthen your cash flow, and keep your mission moving, even when the landscape is changing around you.

How to Prevent Fraud in Insurance Payment Portals

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Key Takeaways

  • Insurance payment portals face concentrated fraud risk across account takeover, card testing, ACH abuse, and refund schemes—and each requires tailored controls.
  • The most effective defenses are layered across login, payment, and back-office operations, combining strong authentication, ACH account validation, tuned velocity rules, and clear refund policies.
  • Coordinating fraud prevention with customer service, billing, and vendors turns controls into a better overall policyholder experience—not just more friction.

Insurance leaders have spent the last few years modernizing digital payments. Many have added portals, text-to-pay, IVR, and agent-assisted options that make it easier for policyholders to pay premiums and manage accounts online.

But as those experiences improve, fraudsters follow. And bad actors don’t just care about card numbers; they care about long-lived accounts they can take over, automated clearing house (ACH) rails they can exploit with weak validation, and refund flows they can twist into fast cash.

Ignoring portal fraud isn’t just a security problem. In insurance, it’s a retention, revenue, and coverage problem:

  • A compromised portal account can lead to unauthorized changes that confuse policyholders and drive complaints.
  • Fraudulent or disputed payments can trigger chargebacks, operational cleanup, and regulatory scrutiny.
  • Overaggressive rules can block good customers or make it harder to keep legitimate premiums flowing.

The path forward is not a single “magic” tool. It’s a layered, pragmatic defense—tuned for how card, ACH, and refund flows actually work in insurance.

 

The fraud threats targeting insurance payment portals

Fraud that’s infiltrating insurance portals tends to fall into a few patterns. Common attack types include:

Credential stuffing and account takeover (ATO): Attackers use lists of stolen usernames/passwords to force their way into payment portals where policyholders reuse credentials. Once in, they can:

  • Change contact details or payment methods
  • Add fraudulent cards or bank accounts
  • Make unauthorized onetime or recurring payments (sometimes to test stolen cards)

Card testing and bot abuse: Fraudsters run scripts that fire many small card authorizations through your portal to see which stolen numbers are still live. Insurance portals are particularly attractive because:

  • They often don’t look like “checkout” to issuers, so test transactions may slip through.
  • Premium amounts can be edited, making micro-tests easy.

First-party (“friendly”) fraud and dispute abuse: A real policyholder (or someone close to them) pays, then later disputes the charge with their bank—claiming it was unauthorized, or that coverage wasn’t what they expected. In insurance, this can show up around:

  • New policies or midterm endorsements
  • Large lumpsum payments or catchup premiums
  • Premiums paid just before a claim event

Refund and overpayment schemes: Fraudsters overpay with stolen cards or compromised bank accounts, then pressure staff to “fix” the mistake by refunding to a different destination (e.g., a different card, wire, or wallet).

Abuse of saved payment methods and stored credentials: Long tenured accounts often hold multiple cards or bank details. Without good controls, those stored methods can be:

  • Used by unauthorized users in the household
  • Exploited in ATO incidents
  • Left to quietly fail and trigger downstream churn

The risk isn’t just financial loss. It’s chargeback ratios, scheme reputational scores, ACH return rates, and rising operational load for your billing and CS teams.

 

How fraud shows up in card, ACH, and refund flows

Fraud doesn’t look the same on every rail. You need different signals and controls for each.

Card flows: CNP fraud, card testing, and chargebacks

Card rails are convenient and familiar—but they’re also the most targeted for card-not-present (CNP) fraud.

How it shows up:

  • Spikes in low-value, rapid-fire authorizations (classic card testing).
  • Unusual card use patterns for a single policyholder: multiple cards added in a short period, or cards from high-risk regions.
  • Chargebacks where the customer claims nonrecognition, nonreceipt, or duplicate billing (often friendly fraud).

Maintain dispute playbooks with clear descriptors, documentation, and evidence packs to contest fraudulent or abusive chargebacks.

ACH flows: returns, NSF loops, and validation gaps

ACH is critical for large and recurring premiums because bank accounts change far less often than cards and have lower decline rates. But ACH introduces its own fraud and risk profile.

How it shows up:

  • Repeated NSF returns, often re-debiting without a rational strategy.
  • Unauthorized debits when a fraudster used someone else’s account or the policyholder disputes after the fact.
  • Fake or mistyped account/routing data used to “float” coverage or delay true payment.

Refund and credit flows: policy, people, and process risk

Refund flows are an overlooked fraud vector. In insurance, you’re refunding:

  • Overpayments and duplicate premiums
  • Canceled policies and endorsements
  • Claims overpayments or corrections

Abuse patterns include:

  • Overpayment with a stolen instrument, then a demand for an urgent refund via a different, irreversible rail (wire, wallet, gift card).
  • Engineered customer service or billing reports to bypass normal refund routes (“my card is closed; just send it to this account instead”).

 

Building a layered defense for portals and accounts

Most insurance teams already have some controls in place. The goal of a layered defense is to connect and tune them: stop the obvious bad, step-up protections against the suspicious, and keep things smooth for good customers. Think in three layers: front door, journey, and back office.

1. Front door: strong, sensible access control

Focus: prevent ATO and automated abuse without locking out real policyholders.

Key moves:

Multifactor authentication (MFA) or onetime passwords for:

  • New device logins
  • Sensitive actions (adding/changing payment methods, bank accounts, addresses)
  • High-risk segments (e.g., high premium policies, recent fraud activity)

Rate limiting and bot controls on login and payment endpoints:

  • Throttle repeated failed logins per IP/device
  • Add CAPTCHA only when risk signals are elevated, not on every session

Device and behavior signals:

  • Flag new devices, impossible travel (logins from distant geos in short windows), and odd hour activity for risk-based challenges rather than outright blocks.

2. In-journey: tuned controls at key payment and profile steps

Focus: treat high-risk steps differently from routine interactions.

High-impact points:

Account creation and profile changes

  • Validate email and mobile; confirm changes via out-of-band notifications.
  • Delay or add review for changes that pair with high-risk events (e.g., address change + bank change + large refund request) [needs internal validation].

Payment method add/update

  • Always apply AVS/CVV for new cards; require MFA for adding or replacing stored instruments.
  • For ACH, follow Nacha guidance and validate accounts at first use or on change, not after the first failed debit.

Premium payments

  • Apply risk-based scoring: low-amount, low-risk recurring payments can flow with minimal friction; unusual one-off high-value payments might trigger additional checks.
  • Use intelligent retries and recovery for genuine failures (insufficient funds, transient errors) so declines don’t turn into unnecessary lapses.

Refund initiation in the portal

  • Limit what customers can self-initiate vs. what requires agent review.
  • If you allow self-service refund requests, bind them to original funding sources and enforce caps per period.

3. Back office: monitoring, playbooks, and cross-team coordination

Focus: treat fraud management as an operational discipline, not one-off firefighting.

Core elements:

Clear metrics and dashboards

High-performing organizations track:

  • Decline and failure rates (card and ACH)
  • Chargebacks by reason code
  • ACH return rates and reasons
  • ATO incidents and password reset volumes
  • Refund volume and patterns over time

Fraud spike playbooks

Use a predefined incident runbook (aligned to CSG’s broader “fraud spike” guidance) that covers:

  • Detection and triage thresholds
  • Short-term rule/rate-limit changes
  • Communication flows to CX, legal, and compliance

Governance and ownership

Ensure fraud, payments, security, billing, and CS know:

  • Who owns portal risk decisions
  • How exceptions are handled
  • When to involve vendors or card networks

 

A pragmatic way forward

You don’t have to solve every portal risk this quarter. But you do need a plan.

A realistic sequence for most insurance teams:

Turn on and tune what you already have:

  • AVS/CVV enforcement
  • Basic velocity controls
  • MFA at least for high-risk actions

Close obvious gaps in ACH validation and refund policies:

  • Align to Nacha’s WEB debit account validation expectations for new/changed accounts.
  • Make “refund to original method” your default.

Instrument your metrics:

  • If you can’t see declines, returns, ATO indicators, and refund patterns in one place, fix that. Everything else depends on it.

Layer in smarter tools where warranted:

  • Risk-based monitoring, device intelligence, or specialized fraud platforms when volume, loss, and complexity justify it.

Done well, a layered approach lets trusted policyholders glide through their payment and portal experiences—while fraudsters find your doors locked, your windows latched, and your team ready when they test the walls.

Ready to strengthen your insurance portal against payment fraud? Take the next step: schedule a personalized risk assessment with our experts to start building your layered defense today.

CSG Forte can help you protect your customers, minimize losses, and future-proof your operations. Connect with us now to get started.

 

FAQs

What are the most common fraud threats to insurance payment portals?

Insurance portals are typically targeted by credential stuffing and account takeover attacks, card testing bots, first-party dispute abuse, and refund/overpayment scams that try to reroute funds to different destinations.

How does ACH fraud differ from card fraud in an insurance context?

ACH fraud often appears as unauthorized debits, repeated NSF returns, or use of invalid account details, while card fraud is more likely to involve card-not-present misuse and card testing. Nacha’s WEB debit rules now explicitly require ACH originators to include account validation as part of their fraud detection systems for online debits.

What is Nacha’s expectation for WEB debit fraud detection and account validation?

Nacha requires ACH originators of WEB debit entries to use a “commercially reasonable fraudulent transaction detection system” that includes account validation at a minimum for the first use of an account number and for any subsequent changes, to confirm the account is open and able to receive ACH entries.

How can insurers prevent over-blocking good customers while fighting fraud?

Rather than blanket rules, insurers should use risk-based controls: apply MFA and extra checks for higher-risk actions or unusual patterns, allow low-risk recurring payments to flow with minimal friction, and give CS visibility and scripts to quickly resolve false positives without undermining controls.

Where do CSG Forte/CSG solutions help with insurance portal fraud?

CSG Forte BillPay centralizes card and ACH payments across web, mobile, IVR, text-to-pay, and in-person channels with PCI-compliant hosted forms, tokenization, Account Updater, and reporting that support lower decline and fraud rates, while CSG’s broader security and journey tools help orchestrate reminders, recovery, and risk-aware experiences.

A Practical Guide to Modern Property Management Payment Solutions

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Key Takeaways

  • Digital, omnichannel rent and dues payments dramatically improve on-time collection and reduce manual work for property management teams.
  • Modern payment solutions like combine a branded, resident-friendly portal with secure processing, flexible schedules, notifications, and reporting.
  • Real-world platforms such as Rentec Direct and Buildium have proven that modern payment infrastructure can reduce late payments, stabilize cash flow, and support significant portfolio growth.

Rent and dues collection is the heartbeat of your operation. That money funds your mortgage payments, payroll, maintenance, capital projects, and growth margins.

But for many property managers, “rent week” still looks like pulling crumpled paper checks and money orders from office drop boxes, waiting on staff to key numbers into ledgers or spreadsheets, correcting errors and recalculating deposit totals, making phone calls and sending emails to chase down late payers, driving to the bank to manually deposit the payments, and then waiting three-plus days for the checks to clear—or maybe bounce.

These workflows do more than create stress. They:

  • Limit your ability to scale across properties and markets.
  • Introduce avoidable errors and disputes.
  • Make cash flow harder to forecast.
  • Create an experience that feels outdated to residents who pay everything else online.

Modern rent payments give you another option. By moving to a digital, automated, omnichannel model, you can make on-time payments the default, simplify operations and create a better experience for residents and staff.

In this comprehensive guide, we’ll walk you through examples of what “modern rent payments” look like; explain how they impact collections, cash flow, and admin work; and discuss how property management platforms like yours fit them into their tech stack.

 

Where manual payment processes hold you back

Manual payment processes show up as operational drag in four core areas.

1. Cash-flow uncertainty and portfolio risk

When payments arrive by mail or in person, timing is largely out of your control. You may have:

  • Spikes of activity around due dates
  • Gaps where you’re waiting on envelopes and walk-ins
  • Delays when staff can’t process deposits immediately

For a single building, that’s an annoyance. For a multi-property or multi-region portfolio, it becomes a structural risk: it’s harder to forecast when you’ll have the funds to cover mortgages, vendors, and payroll or to plan capital improvements with confidence.

2. High administrative burden across locations

Every manual step adds more paid time on tasks like:

  • Opening mail and logging checks or money orders
  • Taking payments over the phone and re-keying card or automated clearing house (ACH) details
  • Tracking down missing information and correcting entry errors
  • Reconciling bank deposits with property management software or accounting systems

Multiply this across leasing offices, communities, and associations, and you’re dedicating dozens of hours per cycle to work that could be handled by integrated systems.

One large property management firm, Gordon James Realty, cut accounts receivable processing costs by 25% and reduced time spent manually processing checks by 15% after adopting CSG Forte electronic payment processing—freeing staff to focus on resident service instead of data entry.

3. Elevated risk and disputes

Cash and paper checks create risk you don’t need:

  • Items can be lost, misrouted, or misapplied.
  • Handwritten notes and ad hoc spreadsheets are easy to misinterpret.
  • The lack of a clean, digital audit trail makes disputes harder to resolve.

Without a consistent, tokenized, system-of-record approach to payments, you’re more exposed to fraud, chargebacks, and resident complaints. And then you spend even more time proving what happened.

4. A resident experience that feels out of step

Today’s renters and owners expect:

  • To see what they owe and pay it from any device
  • Clear confirmation that payments went through
  • Flexible options for timing and channel

Many will still pay with checks if they have to—but it’s rarely the experience they want. Modern payments help you differentiate your communities and meet expectations for professionalism and convenience.

 

What “modern” rent payments really should be

Modernizing payments isn’t just taking cards online. For property managers and community associations, it means building a rent and dues experience that is:

Digital-first, but truly omnichannel

Residents and owners can pay:

  • Through a mobile-friendly portal
  • Over the phone or via interactive voice workflows
  • In person, with staff using the same underlying processing platform
  • Using ACH, cards, or digital wallets, based on your policies

Behind the scenes, your team manages everything through a single, integrated platform that feeds your property management or accounting system.

Resident-friendly and branded

Instead of a generic third-party page, you offer a portal that reflects your brand:

  • Your logo, color palette, and messaging
  • Your URL, so residents feel they’re still on your site
  • Clear presentation of charges, history, and receipts

CSG Forte BillPay, for example, lets organizations create a custom portal URL, upload images for the landing page, and customize text, so the experience feels like a seamless extension of your website.

Automated and policy-driven

Modern rent payments are designed to run on rails:

  • Scheduled and recurring payments
  • Automated reminders and confirmations
  • Automatic posting and reconciliation into your ledgers

You can configure:

  • Schedule-pay and auto-pay for residents who want to “set it and move on”
  • Partial-pay, over-pay, and pre-pay options that align with your lease terms or bylaws
  • Different rules by property, portfolio, or association

Secure and compliant by design

Payment security can’t be an afterthought:

  • Sensitive payment data is captured via PCI-compliant forms.
  • Card and bank details are tokenized and stored on secure servers.
  • Staff interact with tokens—not raw card numbers—reducing PCI scope.
  • Every transaction has a digital audit trail to support dispute resolution and reporting.

Reporting-ready for finance and operations

With cloud-based reporting, you can:

  • Monitor collections by property, payment method, and channel.
  • Spot trends in delinquencies or failed payments sooner.
  • Support audits with exportable data instead of manual roll-ups.

When these pieces work together, “rent week” stops being a scramble and becomes a predictable, trackable process that you can manage strategically.

 

Real-world proof: Buildium’s growth with modern payments

Buildium, a successful property management software company, was born out of firsthand experience with rental properties. Their core customers—property managers—needed a way to:

  • Process a high volume of rent payments.
  • Support high ticket sizes via ACH for larger transactions.
  • Integrate payments cleanly into the software experience property managers already relied on.

Buildium chose CSG Forte for a customized ACH processing solution with:

  • A payment platform built for high volumes and high-value transactions
  • Easy-to-use APIs that fit Buildium’s product architecture
  • A dedicated implementation team and a consistent CSG Forte account owner

The results

Between 2016 and 2017, Buildium saw almost 35% year-over-year growth in transactions and a 39% year-over-year increase in dollars processed.

That growth helped Buildium become a leading software solution for property managers and contributed to its acquisition by a multinational property management software corporation for $580 million.

For property managers, that success translates into a more robust, reliable payments backbone embedded in the software many of you already use—proof that the right payment infrastructure can scale with your portfolio.

 

Where CSG Forte BillPay fits in your property management tech stack

CSG Forte BillPay is an electronic bill presentment and payment (EBPP) solution that layers a hosted, branded portal and omnichannel payment experience on top of secure, scalable payment processing.

For property managers, HOAs, and community associations, that means you can:

  • Present charges (rent, dues, fees, utilities and more) clearly in a resident-friendly portal.
  • Let residents pay anytime, by phone, online, or in person, with their preferred method.
  • Configure autopay, schedule-pay, partial-pay, over-pay, and pre-pay based on your policies.
  • Offer notifications and text-to-pay for recurring users to reduce late payments.
  • Feed daily payment files into your accounting or property management system in flexible formats.
  • Keep data secure with tokenization and PCI-compliant capture of payment details.

CSG Forte can complement the property management software you already use—helping you modernize the payments experience without replacing your core PMS or rewriting your entire tech stack

 

Next step: See modern rent payments in action

Modern rent payments are no longer a “nice to have.” They’re quickly becoming the standard that residents expect and that operations teams need to stay ahead.

If you want to:

  • Reduce late payments and delinquencies across your portfolio.
  • Cut down on manual work every rent and dues cycle.
  • Offer a resident experience that feels modern, not dated.
  • Put your teams on a single, secure payments backbone.

If you’re ready to see what recurring digital payments and a hosted bill pay portal could do for your communities, request a demo of CSG Forte BillPay to learn how modern rent and dues collection can improve your tenants’ payment habits, allowing you to move away from paper checks from paper checks, manual tracking, and traditional rent-week chaos.

 

FAQs

1. Why should property managers move from paper checks to digital rent and dues payments?

Rent and dues collection is the cash-flow engine for your properties, funding everything from mortgages and payroll to maintenance and capital projects. Manual processes—opening mail, keying in checks, reconciling deposits, and chasing late payers—introduce delays, errors, and uncertainty, especially across multi-property portfolios. Digital, omnichannel payments help make on-time payments the default, reduce admin work, and give you clearer, more predictable cash flow so you can plan and grow with confidence.

2. What makes “modern” rent payments different from basic online payments?

Modern rent payments go beyond simply accepting cards on a website. A truly modern solution is:

  • Digital-first and omnichannel: Residents can pay online, on mobile, by phone/IVR, or in person, all on the same underlying platform.
  • Resident-friendly and branded: A portal on your URL with your logo, colors, and messaging, plus clear views of balances, history, and receipts.
  • Automated and policy-driven: Auto-pay, schedule-pay, partial/over/pre-pay options, reminders, confirmations, and automatic posting/reconciliation.
  • Secure and compliant: Tokenization, PCI-compliant capture forms, and a full digital audit trail for easier dispute resolution and reporting.

3. How can modern rent payments reduce late payments and delinquencies?

Digital payment infrastructure makes it easier for residents to pay on time, every time by:

  • Allowing them to set and forget with auto-pay or scheduled payments tied to due dates.
  • Sending proactive reminders and confirmations through their preferred channels (email, text, portal notifications).
  • Supporting multiple payment methods (ACH, cards, digital wallets) and channels, so residents can pay from anywhere, on any device.

Real-world platforms like Buildium, powered by scalable payment processing, have seen strong growth in both transaction volume and dollars processed, translating into more reliable collections and healthier cash flow for property managers.

4. How does CSG Forte BillPay fit into my existing property management or accounting system?

CSG Forte BillPay is designed to layer on top of the tools you already use, not replace them. It provides a hosted, branded portal and omnichannel payment experience that can:

  • Present rent, dues, fees, and utilities clearly to residents.
  • Capture payments online, by phone, or in person and feed daily payment files into your PMS or accounting system in flexible formats.
  • Apply your rules for auto-pay, partial/over/pre-pay, and property- or association-specific policies.

That means you can modernize the resident payment experience and streamline back-office work without rewriting your tech stack or ripping out your core property management software.

5. Is it secure for residents to store their payment information and pay online?

Yes—when payments are handled through a modern, compliant provider. With CSG Forte:

  • Sensitive card and bank data is captured via PCI-compliant forms and tokenized, so your staff interacts only with secure tokens, not raw account numbers.
  • Transactions are processed on secure, audited servers, reducing your PCI scope and exposure to sensitive payment data.
  • Every payment generates a digital audit trail, which helps resolve disputes and supports internal and external audits.

The result is a safer experience for residents and a lower-risk, more compliant environment for your business than handling paper checks or storing payment details locally.

ACH vs Card Payments: A Practical Strategy for Mid-Market Banks

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Key Takeaways

  • ACH generally offers lower processing costs and strong support for recurring, high‑value payments, while cards excel at real‑time, customer‑friendly experiences.
  • Banks should tailor ACH and card mixes by industry and use case, then help clients gradually migrate appropriate volumes from card and checks to ACH.
  • Unified platforms support both ACH and cards across channels—with account verification, PCI‑aligned security and shared reporting—simplify operations for banks and mid‑market customers.

Mid‑market financial institutions (banks with annual revenue between $10 million and $500 million) are under pressure to move money faster, more efficiently, and with less friction. Yet many still rely on a default mix of cards and even checks that was set up years ago, without revisiting whether those payment rails still make sense for today’s volumes, margins, and customer expectations.

For banks, that’s both a risk and an opportunity. Your mid‑market portfolio depends on reliable, low‑friction money movement. Helping business clients choose and optimize between ACH and card payments is one of the most direct ways to cut costs, reduce failures, and deepen relationships over time.

This guide offers a practical way for to talk about ACH vs card payments with business customers, and to design the right rail mix by use case and industry.

 

How ACH and cards each support business clients

ACH: the low‑cost, bank‑to‑bank workhorse

The Automated Clearing House (ACH) Network is the United States’ system for batch electronic funds transfers. It’s used for everything from payroll and benefits to bill payments and B2B transactions.

It moves money directly between bank accounts via credit “push” and debit “pull” transactions, governed by Nacha standards and rules.

For mid‑market businesses, ACH is often the best fit when:

  • Ticket sizes are larger or recurring: ACH processing typically costs less than accepting credit card payments, especially for high‑value or subscription‑like transactions.
  • Predictability matters more than instant authorization: Same‑day ACH and late cut‑off windows can provide funds availability within one business day for many payments, while keeping fees below typical card costs.
  • They want “set it and forget it” billing: ACH is well suited to recurring invoices, memberships, rent and payroll, where customers authorize regular debits from their accounts.

Modern ACH platforms also support acceptance across online, mobile, phone (including interactive voice response, or IVR, and text-to-pay) and in‑person channels from one system, so finance teams are not juggling separate tools per rail.

Cards: the high‑conversion, customer‑friendly rail

Debit and credit cards run over global card networks governed by the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), which sets technical and operational requirements for protecting cardholder data.

Cards tend to win when:

  • Convenience and familiarity drive completion: Customers know how to pay with cards in eCommerce, mobile apps, and at physical points of sale.
  • Instant authorization and confirmation are critical: Cards provide real‑time approval, which is valuable for time‑sensitive purchases, last‑minute bill payments, or services that start immediately after payment.
  • The payer is hesitant to share bank details: Many consumers and small businesses are more comfortable using card credentials than routing and account numbers.

In U.S. online payments, debit cards are widely preferred: more than half of Americans say debit is their primary payment card, and debit card online payments outperform bank account transfers in some contexts.

That makes debit a particularly useful rail for digital bill pay and repayment scenarios.

In practice, most mid‑market clients benefit from using both ACH and cards—applied intentionally to the right use cases rather than by habit.

 

Comparing cost, speed, and risk by use case

A simple way to structure client conversations is around three dimensions: cost, speed/experience, and risk/failure patterns.

Cost

ACH

  • ACH payments can generally be processed for less than the cost of credit card transactions, which is especially impactful on large or recurring payments.
  • This makes ACH a strong fit for B2B invoices, subscriptions, dues, leases, tuition and similar flows where margins are tight.

Cards

  • Card acceptance involves network, interchange and acquirer fees that add up at scale, particularly on high‑ticket items.
  • For some regulated use cases, businesses may use compliant service or convenience fees to offset card processing costs, particularly on debit transactions; this requires careful alignment with card‑network and regulatory rules.

Speed and customer experience

ACH

  • Nacha estimates that about 80% of ACH payments—credits and debits—settle in one banking day or less via regular or Same Day ACH.
  • Same‑day ACH and flexible cut‑offs mean many payments can reach the receiving account the same day or by the next business day, with some weekend processing posting on Monday.
  • That’s fast enough for most recurring and scheduled obligations, especially when paired with reminders and autopay.

Cards

  • Cards provide real‑time authorization and immediate confirmation at checkout, which reduces anxiety for customers making last‑minute or high‑stakes payments.
  • This often improves completion rates in digital flows, particularly with debit card options that match how many US consumers already pay for everyday expenses.

Risk and failure patterns

ACH

  • ACH transactions can be returned for reasons like insufficient funds, invalid account numbers or closed accounts; these are communicated using standardized return codes.
  • Account validation and verification services help identify inactive or high‑risk accounts before submission and support Nacha’s fraud‑detection mandate, reducing unnecessary fees from returns.

Cards

  • Card transactions can fail due to expired or reissued cards, insufficient credit, issuer fraud controls or technical issues.
  • Debit card payments used for recurring obligations can reduce certain types of returns, because funds are verified in real time and card credentials typically don’t change as frequently as customer bank relationships. This aligns with broader research showing debit as a preferred, high‑usage rail for U.S. consumers.

Encourage clients to look at where payments fail today—for example, ACH returns vs card declines—and then consider which rail, combined with better tools, best reduces that friction.

 

Designing the right rail mix by industry

Rail strategy is highly contextual. Specific recommendations should reflect each client’s customer profile, ticket sizes, channels, and regulatory environment. The patterns below can help structure industry‑specific conversations.

1. B2B services and SaaS

  • Default rail: ACH for recurring invoices, retainers and subscription fees to keep processing costs low and cash flow predictable.
  • Complementary rails: Cards for small, one‑off invoices, international customers or long‑tail segments that resist sharing bank credentials.
  • How to frame it: Position ACH autopay as a way to simplify collections and reduce manual reconciliation, with card as a flexible backup for online checkouts.

2. Property, rent and association dues

  • Default rail: ACH for monthly rent or dues, especially for residents or members on long‑term agreements.
  • Complementary rails: Debit and credit cards for move‑in fees, short‑term leases or residents who want to manage cash flow on a card; digital wallets can support mobile‑first experiences.
  • How to frame it: Use ACH for stable, recurring payments where lower costs and predictability matter, while offering cards and wallets to improve adoption and convenience.

3. Healthcare, education and membership‑based organizations

  • Default rail: ACH for payment plans, tuition and larger balances that benefit from lower transaction costs.
  • Complementary rails: Debit and credit cards for co‑pays, incidentals and smaller balances where patients, students or members prioritize familiarity and speed.
  • How to frame it: This segment often sees a mix of institutional and consumer payers; focus on flexibility, clear communication and the ability to support both scheduled plans (ACH) and ad hoc payments (cards).

4. Government, utilities, and recurring billers

  • Default rail: ACH for scheduled bill pay and autopay programs, where lower per‑transaction costs are attractive at scale and Same Day ACH can still provide prompt posting.
  • Complementary rails: Cards and digital wallets for last‑minute or catch‑up payments, and for customers who rely heavily on mobile and IVR channels.
  • How to frame it: Emphasize omnichannel bill pay with a consistent experience across web, mobile, IVR, text‑to‑pay and in‑person—while nudging predictable payers toward ACH to protect budgets.

Across industries, your advisory role is to help clients document key flows (by channel and scenario) and assign both a primary and backup rail for each.

 

How CSG Forte helps banks deliver modern ACH and card experiences

Banks do not need to build a multi‑rail payments stack from scratch. A modern payments partner can help you deliver both ACH and card capabilities—plus the tooling around them—as an integrated merchant services offering.

CSG Forte provides a unified, cloud‑based platform for ACH, debit and credit card acceptance across web, mobile, IVR, text‑to‑pay and in‑person channels, with centralized reporting and reconciliation.

By pairing your relationship strength with a platform built for multi‑rail, omnichannel payments, you can help mid‑market customers move from ad hoc choices (“whatever rail is there”) to an intentional ACH + card mix that reduces friction, lowers costs and supports growth—while protecting and expanding your own revenue base.

CSG Forte‑powered solutions help financial institutions just like yours modernize their bill pay and receivables. Reach out today to schedule a demo.

 

FAQs

What is the main difference between ACH and card payments for businesses?

ACH moves funds directly between bank accounts in batches via the ACH Network, often at a lower processing cost than card payments, and is ideal for recurring or high‑value transfers.

Card payments run over global card networks with real‑time authorization and higher fees, making them a better fit where speed and convenience are paramount.

How fast do ACH payments clear compared to cards?

Many ACH payments—credits and debits—settle in one banking day or less, thanks to Same Day ACH and optimized processing windows.

Card transactions authorize in real time at checkout, but actual settlement with the merchant’s bank follows the card network’s clearing cycles.

Are ACH payments secure enough for mid‑market companies?

Yes. ACH payments are governed by Nacha Operating Rules, and modern providers layer in account verification, fraud monitoring and strong data protection controls to reduce returns and unauthorized transactions.

Can one platform handle both ACH and card payments for our business clients?

Yes. CSG Forte, for example, supports credit and debit cards, ACH and eChecks across online, mobile, IVR, text‑to‑pay and in‑person channels, with a unified reporting and reconciliation layer.

What metrics should banks track to know if their clients’ rail mix is working?

Useful measures include payment mix by rail, cost per payment for ACH vs cards, failure and return rates by method, digital vs manual channel adoption and the operational impact on staff time and call volume.

Embedded Payments for Fintechs: Scale, Compliance, & Control

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Key Takeaways

  • Embedded payments are becoming the default expectation for software-as-a-service (SaaS) and financial technology (fintech) platforms, but they also expand your responsibilities for risk and compliance.
  • Choosing between payment aggregator, Payment Facilitation-as-a-Service (PFaaS), and Registered Payment Facilitation models isn’t just about APIs; it’s about control, economics, and risk appetite.
  • High‑performing platforms design onboarding, payment and account flows that reduce friction for users while baking in fraud controls and regulatory requirements from the start.

If you are building a fintech platform, you’re under pressure from both sides.

Your customers expect to onboard, accept, and reconcile payments without ever leaving your product. At the same time, regulators, sponsor banks, and networks expect clear answers about who is moving money through your platform, how you monitor risk, and what happens when something looks wrong.

Handle this well, and embedded payments could become one of your biggest growth levers. Get it wrong, and you inherit operational headaches, compliance exposure, and unhappy customers.

This guide walks through how to implement embedded payments in a way that supports growth—while managing risk and compliance—using services like Registered Payment Facilitation and Payment Facilitation‑as‑a‑Service (PFaaS).

 

Why embedded payments are platform table stakes

Embedded payments weave payment capabilities directly into your platform so users can pay—or get paid—without being redirected to a third‑party checkout or portal. Instead of spinning up a separate merchant account and logging into a different gateway, your customers sign up, accept payments, and see their reporting without leaving your page.

Embedded payments are one part of “embedded finance,” where non‑financial companies offer services like payments, lending, or insurance in their own experiences without holding every underlying license themselves.

The appeal is clear:

  • Less friction for users: People complete financial tasks in the same digital journeys they already use, rather than jumping to bank sites or generic payment pages.
  • More revenue for platforms: By participating in payment economics instead of just referring merchants out, platforms can unlock new fee‑based revenue streams.
  • Stronger retention and stickiness: When payments, reporting, and settlement are deeply embedded, switching platforms means re‑platforming payments as well as software.

The trade‑off is that once your brand is attached to onboarding flows and payout screens, banks and regulators increasingly see your platform as part of the control environment, even when you don’t hold every license directly.

 

Which embedded payment type is right for you?

Before you design a single screen, you need clarity on your operating model. Most software‑led platforms end up in one of two buckets.

1. Aggregator / referral‑style models

In an aggregator model, you connect merchants to a processor or merchant‑of‑record provider, often via a referral or reseller agreement. The provider holds the merchant‑of‑record or payment‑facilitation role; you embed their onboarding and checkout experiences into your product.

Where this model shines

  • Fastest path to market: You can add an “accept payments” option in your platform without building a full risk and compliance program.
  • Lower operational burden: The provider typically handles direct KYC/KYB, chargebacks, scheme rules and much of PCI scope.

Trade‑offs

  • Limited control over pricing and settlement policies
  • Less flexibility in underwriting rules and edge‑case handling
  • Most transaction margin accrues to the provider

For emerging financial technology (fintech) companies and independent software vendors (ISVs), this is often the best way to validate demand for embedded payments before taking on more responsibility.

2. Payment Facilitation and PFaaS

So, what is payment facilitation and how can it help your business scale? Payment facilitators aggregate many sub‑merchants under a master merchant account and are responsible for underwriting, onboarding, monitoring and funding those sub‑merchants.

Platforms can approach this in two ways:

  • Managed PFaaS: You act like a payment facilitator in your customers’ eyes, but a specialist provider supplies the core infrastructure, bank sponsorship, and most scheme‑level compliance. You focus on UX, go‑to‑market and higher‑level risk decisions.
  • Registered Payment Facilitator: Taking this much control allows you to own your acquiring relationships, compliance program, and risk stack.

Why platforms pick these models:

  • Control over experience: You can brand payment flows, tune onboarding, configure pricing, and keep users inside your app.
  • Improved economics: Instead of small referral fees, you participate directly in transaction fees and can package value‑add services on top (e.g., recurring billing, account updater).

What you take on:

  • Risk and underwriting: Payment facilitators are expected to verify sub‑merchant identities and ownership, assess risk, and approve or decline applications before processing starts.
  • Ongoing monitoring: Networks and regulators expect monitoring for unusual activity, excessive chargebacks, or fraud patterns.
  • Broader compliance scope: Even with PFaaS, you share responsibility for things like sanctions screening, AML, PCI scope, and automated clearing house (ACH) risk management.

PFaaS is often the “sweet spot”: you improve your business model and customer experience while offloading much of the underlying regulatory and operational complexity to a partner.

 

Designing payment flows that help users succeed

Once you know your operating model and compliance boundaries, the real differentiation happens in your flows: onboarding, day‑to‑day payment UX, and account lifecycle.

Onboarding: faster, not reckless

Onboarding is where growth and risk often collide. Drag it out and merchants abandon; move too fast, and you open the door to fraud and regulatory findings.

Best‑practice patterns drawn from Registered Payment Facilitation and PFaaS programs include:

  • Progressive profiling: Start with a lightweight sign‑up (business name, email, basic use case), then request additional data as merchants commit to going live or hit certain volume/feature thresholds.
  • Tiered underwriting: Auto‑approve lower‑risk merchants; route higher‑risk verticals or large volumes to enhanced review.
  • Clear status and expectations: Show merchants where they are in the process (“in review,” “approved,” “more information needed”) and what’s left to do.

Done right, you reduce time‑to‑first‑payment while still collecting the data your Registered Payment Facilitation/PFaaS provider and sponsor banks need to be comfortable.

Everyday payment experiences: reduce friction, not insight

Payment experience decisions have an outsized impact on conversion and support tickets. Embedded payments let you keep users in your experience, but you still need to design for clarity and trust. Consider:

  • Native, branded forms using secure components: Keep users on your platform while leveraging provider‑hosted fields for sensitive data.
  • Context‑aware friction: Require step‑up verification or additional checks for high‑risk actions (e.g., unusually large payments, new device, unusual IP) but keep low‑risk, everyday payments straightforward.
  • Transparent errors and states: Distinguish between “card declined,” “account under review,” and “suspected fraud” so merchants know what to do and your support team can triage effectively.

These patterns support higher conversion and better self‑service without relaxing your risk posture.

Account flows as a fraud‑control surface

Account creation, login, password resets, and payout‑account changes are prime targets for account takeover and fraud in embedded environments. Nacha and banking guidance emphasize that financial institutions remain responsible for risks created by third‑party models and new technologies, even when fintechs are involved.

Practical safeguards include:

  • Stronger authentication for sensitive changes: Require multi‑factor authentication or out‑of‑band verification before users can edit payout bank accounts or issue large refunds.
  • Lifecycle monitoring: Track behavioral signals over time—device changes, frequent password resets, new IP geographies combined with payout updates—and route suspicious sessions through additional checks.
  • Coordinated controls with your provider: Align your risk rules (e.g., account flags, velocity checks) with your Payment Facilitator/PFaaS provider’s fraud tools so issues in your app map to controls on the payments side.

These measures help you reduce fraud and protect both your merchants and your own reputation.

 

Where an embedded payments partner fits in

An experienced payments partner can accelerate this roadmap by:

  • Providing PCI‑compliant infrastructure, tokenization, and risk tooling.
  • Handling much of the day‑to‑day underwriting, monitoring, and scheme compliance in PFaaS and Registered Payment Faccilitation models, while collaborating with you on risk policies.
  • Offering flexible partnership models (referral, reseller, PFaaS, Registered Payment Facilitation) that let you start where you are and grow into deeper ownership when you’re ready.
  • Supplying real‑time reporting and analytics so you and your merchants can see what’s happening without stitching together multiple dashboards.

The platforms that win in this next wave won’t be those that take the most risk or those that avoid it entirely, but those that treat embedded payments as a growth engine and a risk/control program—designed together from day one.

Want to see how leading platforms scale with embedded payments? Check out our customer success stories to learn what changes when payments are seamless, compliant, and built into your product. Ready to talk with an expert to learn how embedded payments could give your business an advantage? Contact us today.

 

FAQs

What’s the difference between embedded payments and integrated payments?
Embedded payments build payment functions directly into your platform’s experience so users never leave your app to complete transactions. Integrated payments typically means you’ve connected to a gateway or processor, but users might still be redirected to third‑party pages or separate modules.

Do we have to become a Registered Payment Facilitator to offer embedded payments?
No. Many platforms start with aggregator or referral models, or use PFaaS to embed payments without becoming fully Registered Payment Facilitators themselves. Moving to a Registered Payment Facilitation model makes sense when your transaction volume, economics and risk/compliance capabilities justify the investment.

Who is responsible for KYC/KYB and AML in an embedded model?
In Registered Payment Facilitation and PFaaS setups, the payment facilitator and their sponsor bank usually hold primary obligations under BSA/AML and similar regulations, but platforms are expected to collect accurate data, cooperate with monitoring and align their onboarding flows so regulatory requirements can be met.

How do Nacha rules affect platforms that use ACH?
If your embedded payments offering includes ACH, your role may fall under Nacha’s definitions of Third‑Party Service Provider or Third‑Party Sender, which brings specific registration, audit and agreement requirements. Recent rules also require corporate end users to have risk‑based processes to identify potential fraudulent ACH payments.

How can we speed up merchant onboarding without breaking compliance?
Use automated KYC/KYB tools, progressive profiling and tiered underwriting. Align your data collection with your Payment Facilitator/PFaaS partner’s policies so that low‑risk merchants can be auto‑approved while higher‑risk ones receive enhanced review without unnecessary delays.