Payments 2012: Three Awarded For Payments Excellence

NACHA — The Electronic Payments Association today announced the recipients of its 2012 Payments System Awards. The awards were announced during the group's Payments 2012 annual conference.

ACH Alert was awarded the Kevin O'Brien ACH Quality Award, named in honor of the late Kevin O’Brien, NACHA's chairperson from 1999 to 2000. According to NACHA, ACH Alert was honored for the design innovation demonstrated by its automated, client-driven solution to enable financial institutions and their business clients to more effectively prevent, detect and react to fraud.

The NACHA PayItGreen Award -- awarded for individual or organizational leadership, vision, and innovation in the education and promotion of electronic payments, statements, and billing to reduce paper’s impact on the environment -- was given to Cigna Global Health Benefits. Cigna was honored for its "Go Green" efforts to enable customers to opt out of paper-based Explanation of Benefits (EOB) statements and go all-electronic.

J. Steven Stone from PNC Bank was given the George Mitchell Award, named after the former vice-chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve who was an early proponent of electronic payments. According to NACHA Stone has been "instrumental in shaping the ACH Network for more than 30 years." His contributions include extensive work on the NACHA operating rules and payments innovations such as cross-border ACH and corporate trade payments.

"The recipients of the 2012 Payments System Awards are pioneers in advancing the use of electronic payments, and innovators in their use of the ACH Network," said NACHA President and CEO Janet O. Estep, in a statement. "It is because of their leadership and vision that the ACH Network remains an efficient, secure, and reliable payments network. We are pleased to recognize their contributions to the industry by honoring them with these distinguished awards."

Bryan Yurcan is associate editor for Bank Systems and Technology. He has worked in various editorial capacities for newspapers and magazines for the past 8 years. After beginning his career as a municipal and courts reporter for daily newspapers in upstate New York, Bryan has ... View Full Bio