• Till Financial has selected Astra to bring instant money transfers to its users.
• Till Financial offers a fee-free debit card and savings platform for kids.
• The two will roll out more features “in the coming months.”

Family-focused financial platform Till Financial is keeping up with the times when it comes to faster payments. The Massachusetts-based company has tapped money movement platform Astra for instant money movement.

The partnership will offer Till users secure and instant fund transfers, meaning they won’t need to wait the traditional three-days for funds to clear. Astra will also remove much of the friction involved in funding the youth accounts.

“We are thrilled to join forces with Astra to bring Till to the next level,” said Till Co-founder Taylor Burton. “This partnership will enable us to deliver on our promise of serving the unique needs of our families through financial literacy and empowering kids to be smarter spenders by offering them the tools they need for instant, secure, and user-friendly fund transfers.”

Till was founded in 2018 to promote financial literacy among kids. The company offers kids a bank account, a debit card, and a goal-based savings account. The parent can set the kid’s allowance, control the card, and receive insight into kids’ spending and savings habits. Unlike other youth-based digital banking tools which generally charge around $5 per month, Till does not charge any fees.

“Our technology complements Till’s vision for free family banking perfectly, and we are empowering families to have greater control and flexibility over their financial activities,” said Astra CEO Gil Akos. “This partnership underscores Astra’s commitment to driving fintech innovation that directly benefits consumers.”

Till and Astra plan to roll out more features “in the coming months.”

Photo by cottonbro studio

• Orum launched Verify, a new product to determine the validity of a bank account before initiating payments.
• Verify is built on top of FedNow and is able to authenticate 100% of all consumer and business bank accounts held in the U.S.
• Verify leverages the FedNow payment rail to provide businesses with account information in real time.

Real-time payments innovator Orum has launched a new product called Verify to determine whether a bank account is open and valid before initiating payments. Verify is built on top of FedNow and is able to authenticate 100% of all consumer and business bank accounts held in the U.S.– all within 15 seconds.

Orum’s Verify seeks to help businesses reduce fraud resulting from invalid credentials and mitigate the friction that consumers with valid bank accounts face when making a transaction. Regardless of the reason for the transaction failures, they are costly. A survey conducted in 2020 showed that 60% of business respondents reported losing customers as a result of failed payments and that failed payments lost the global economy more than $118 billion in fees, labor, and lost business in 2020.

“Lost time verifying accounts equals lost revenue and ultimately lost customers,” said Orum Founder and CEO Stephany Kirkpatrick. “This is especially true for business bank accounts, which are notoriously difficult to verify. Businesses need confidence they are debiting or crediting a real account to ensure the payment lands safely in the bank account, but most solutions today are slow or don’t include coverage for all B2B use cases. Verify – built on top of FedNow – has changed this equation, making it now possible to verify any type of bank account instantly.”

Today’s launch hinges on FedNow. Orum leverages the payment rail to provide real-time account information to businesses. The company uses a webhook to automatically send the data back to the business in real-time. This eliminates the need for the customer to get involved by confirming microdeposits or entering their bank login credentials.

Orum was founded in 2019 to serve as a single solution for accessing RTP, FedNow, Same Day ACH, ACH, and Wires. The company’s payment API orchestrates instant payouts, using AI to predict the availability of funds within an account and pre-authorize transactions.

Founded by Stephany Kirkpatrick, Orum has raised over $82 million from investors including Accel, Canapi, Bain Capital Ventures, Inspired Capital, American Express Ventures, and others.

Photo by Steve Johnson

• Treyd has appointed Colin Moss-Davies as its first Chief Revenue Officer.
• With 25 years of experience, Colin Moss-Davies comes to Treyd most recently from PayPal.
• Sweden-based Treyd pays for inventory upfront on behalf of its business clients.

Procurement financing company Treyd has appointed ex-PayPal sales head Colin Moss-Davies as its first Chief Revenue Officer.

Moss-Davies comes to Treyd with 25 years of sales experience. The company anticipates Moss-Davies will bring growth and profitability to the company, which seeks to help small businesses “sell first, pay suppliers later.”

“Hiring a CRO of such calibre is a natural step in our global scaling journey as we progress towards profitability,” said company CEO and Co-founder Peter Beckman. “We quickly realised Colin was the right person to lead Treyd’s revenue operations through this next phase of expansion, and I am confident that his experience from revenue leadership in exceptional fintechs across multiple stages, together with his assured nature and all-embracing management style, will prove the perfect addition to our team here at Treyd.”

As part of his role at Treyd, Moss-Davies will work from the company’s London office help scale and unify the company’s commercial teams, align international offices, and bring new revenue opportunities.

“I am delighted to join a talented team with a great culture, very clear vision, and dedication to supporting SMEs,” said Moss-Davies. “Treyd’s ‘sell first, pay suppliers later’ service enables SMEs to sell inventory before it’s paid for, a truly beneficial service to retailers particularly during these tough trading times. My role will be focused on expanding adoption of the service in all markets and setting the organisation up for success as we scale globally.”

Treyd was founded in 2019 and pays for inventory upfront on behalf of its business clients. This frees up cashflow for small businesses to sell more of their products and ultimately promote growth. The Sweden-based company launched in the U.K. in 2022 and later that year saw a 5x increase in customer number and a 10x increase in revenue.

Treyd currently has 60 employees and has supplied $123 million (£100 million) in financing to its 600 supplier clients across five markets. The company closed a $12 million Series A extension last month, bringing the company’s total funding to over $25 million. 

• paymints.io has partnered with Cross River Bank, which will facilitate a connection to The Clearing House’s RTP network.
• Through the partnership, title insurance companies and real estate brokerages can send and receive digital payments in and out of escrow accounts in real time using paymints.io’s platform.
• The RTP network will be available in addition to the payment rails that paymints.io already offers, including ACH and wire.

When it comes to real estate transactions, buyers and sellers have come to expect a slow process. But while appraisals and due diligence take time, the transfer of funds doesn’t have to. That’s why paymints.io has teamed up with Cross River Bank to help title insurance companies and real estate brokerages send and receive digital payments in and out of escrow accounts in real time.

paymints.io will leverage Cross River’s operating system, which will create a streamlined connection between Cross River and The Clearing House’s (TCH’s) RTP network, offering both businesses and consumers real-time access to funds for transactions under $1 million. By bringing in Cross River, paymints.io will not need to rely on a third-party provider for real-time money movement.

paymints.io was founded in 2020 to offer real estate companies a compliant and modern payments tool that sends funds via ACH and wire. The addition of the RTP network as a payment rail will facilitate the the receipt of money deposits, client and vendor disbursements to third parties, and account-to-account transfers between companies.

In addition to providing real estate professionals, buyers, and sellers with immediate access to funds, the company also expects the new partnership will cut down on the inefficiencies of paper checks, reduce settlement times, and mitigate wire fraud.

As paymnts.io CEO and Co-founder Jason Doshi explained, “… we view adding the RTP instant payment capability as more than the addition of a payment rail but a true evolution of our product offering. Allowing real estate industry participants to move funds instantly and securely while providing real-time visibility drastically improves the real estate transaction experience.”

Cross River and paymints.io have worked together before. The two partnered earlier this year to modernize real estate transactions with ACH and domestic wire capabilities.

“One of the most impactful benefits of our proprietary banking core is the ability to scale with our partners, allowing innovative industry leaders like paymints.io to grow and expand product offerings,” said Cross River Head of Payments Keith Vander Leest. “paymints.io is transforming financial transactions within the real estate industry and we’re proud to power their real-time payment capabilities.”

The use of TCH’s RTP has grown immensely since its launch in 2020. In the third quarter of this year, TCH reported that it facilitated 64 million transactions valued at $34 billion. With the addition of FedNow, which just surpassed 100 participating organizations, as another real-time payments option, consumer expectations will change and we will start seeing real-time payments become the rule, rather than the exception in the U.S.

Photo by RDNE Stock project