Starting Sept. 29, 2017, credit unions and other financialinstitutions that originate ACH transfers must start identifyingand registering their third-party sender customers with NACHA,according to an announcement this week by the organization, whichsets the rules for and administers the ACH network.

Third-party senders are processing intermediaries betweenfinancial institutions and the end users of ACH payments. Under thenew rule, credit unions and other originating depository financialinstitutions on the ACH network will have to provide the names andcontact information for every third-party sender they have arelationship with; ODFIs that don't have third-party senderrelationships must provide statements to that effect, according toNACHA.

The registration process will promote customer due diligence andhelp maintain the quality of the ACH network, NACHA said.

“Third-parties serve a valuable role in the ACH network,supporting many of the users of ACH payments,” NACHA President andCEO Janet Estep said. “Third-party sender registration builds uponother recent rules that enable the ongoing growth of the ACHnetwork while implementing appropriate risk managementmonitoring.”

NACHA has set up a “Third-PartySender Identification Tool” to help financial institutionsdetermine whether it is working with an entity that qualifies as athird-party sender and thus falls under the due diligencerule.

The announcement comes 15 months after NACHA— also known as the Electronic Payments Association — greenlightedsame-day ACH, which adds two new same-day settlement windows tothe ACH network and increases the movement of funds betweenfinancial institutions from once a day to three times per day.Same-day ACH also requires all receiving depository financialinstitutions to accept same-day transactions and the fees that go along with them.

Phase one of that shift begins just a few weeks from now, onSept. 23.