Thought Machine and Form3 Partner on Real-Time Payment Processing 

Cloud-native banking technology company Thought Machine has partnered with cloud-native account-to-account (A2A) platform Form3 to offer banks and financial institutions an end-to-end solution for real-time payment processing. 

This collaboration will add the FedNow® Service, The Clearing House’s RTP and SEPA Instant Credit Transfer connectivity to Thought Machine’s Vault Payments, a cloud-native and application programming interface (API)-enabled platform that simplifies payment processing for banks, the companies said in a Monday (Oct. 23) press release emailed to PYMNTS. 

Through the integration of Vault Payments with Form3’s A2A platform, clients can employ Thought Machine’s configuration capabilities in conjunction with Form3’s direct connection to payment schemes, according to the release. 

Because both platforms were built using cloud-native technologies, they offer reliability, scalability, performance and disaster recovery, the release said. Furthermore, both platforms natively support ISO 20022 messaging standards, which simplifies the migration process for banks. 

Thought Machine Founder and CEO Paul Taylor said in the release: “As real-time payments become the new standard, our combined expertise ensures financial institutions are equipped with cutting-edge, cloud-native technologies.” 

Form3 CEO Mike Walters added: “We are very pleased to be working with Thought Machine, to provide leading banks and financial institutions with a fully-rounded, multi-cloud solution for their real-time payments needs.” 

The volumes that are crossing and are expected to cross real-time rails may not be huge at the moment, but there will be a groundswell through the next year, with momentum accelerating into 2025, Form3 U.S. CEO Dave Scola told PYMNTS in an interview posted Monday. 

This trend has underscored the need for banks to examine their legacy payments architecture, which may be struggling to adapt to the technological demands that come with 24/7/365 operations, Scola said. 

“There’s the desire to meet client demand for real-time payments for enhanced data to capture, and to leverage some additional services on top of the payments,” Scola added. 

In addition, PYMNTS Intelligence has found that the expectations of small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) regarding payment service providers have never been higher, as they are demanding the same payment speed and convenience they experience everywhere else in their digital lives. 

Customers are now choosing which features matter most when picking a real-time payments option, or determining whether it is worth using more than one system for different purposes, according to “Comparing and Contrasting FedNow and the RTP® Network,” a PYMNTS and The Clearing House collaboration.