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Insights and Expertise

erational windows and requiring live visibility
into every step of the transaction life cycle.
defined how authorization and clearing messages should
flow between acquirers, networks and issuers, enabling • Embedded and open finance frameworks,
consistent, automated settlement and reporting across which broaden the data domain by linking pay-
millions of card transactions. ments to invoices, identity and credit.
For banks and processors, success meant keeping those Extending the client experience to the back office
overnight cycles running and producing the right reports
on time. The client experience must extend beyond front-end
interfaces to include back-office transparency covering
As volumes grew and margins shrank, back-office exceptions, disputes, fee assessments, settlement status
operations became prime targets for automation and and reporting.
offshoring. Workflow tools, imaging and exception-
management systems reduced manual effort, but the core Consider a client who spots a spike in refunds. If they
paradigm stayed the same: highly optimized, end-of-day must contact support and wait for days to get answers,
processing with limited visibility for clients. Merchants trust erodes. But that trust strengthens if they have direct,
saw the results in the form of monthly statements and file real-time access to transaction details, dispute activity and
uploads, not real-time insight. root cause analysis.

The industry's data problem eventually caught up with it. Payment providers that embed analytics and provide
Legacy formats prioritized compact messages over rich, client-driven viewing will earn both loyalty and
structured information, constraining everything from competitive advantage.
automated reconciliation to analytics. Turning payments data into a strategic asset
That set the stage for ISO 20022, an open, international data "Aggregating payments data transforms isolated
standard designed to carry far more granular and structured transactions into strategic insights that strengthen both
payment data end-to-end. Banks and infrastructures operations and client relationships," said Peter Tapling,
worldwide are now adopting ISO 20022 for high-value, managing director of PTap Advisory and vice chair of the
batch and instant payment systems, specifically to improve Board of Directors for the U.S. Faster Payments Council.
transparency, remittance handling and automation. When structured and exposed effectively, payments data
becomes a powerful engine for differentiation and growth.
In parallel, real-time payment schemes have pushed back-
office teams into a 24x7, always-on world. When funds move • Monetization of insights: premium analytics tiers,
in seconds instead of days, there's no "overnight window" benchmarking tools and anomaly alerts
to catch up. Treasury and operations teams need live views • Operational efficiency: fewer support tickets, fast-
of positions, limits, fraud alerts and exception queues. er investigations and quicker resolution
• Client retention: stronger stickiness due to embed-
Thought leaders now emphasize that the real value of real- ded user-driven data visibility
time payments lies not only in speed, but also in precision,
transparency and certainty—benefits that depend heavily • Compliance and control: automated audit trails,
on modernized back-office platforms. anomaly detection, and proactive monitoring
A strategic investment in trust and growth
That's the backdrop for the shift described in BHMI Senior
Program Director Kate Knudsen's article. Once a hidden Client experience in payments no longer ends at the user
utility, the payments back office is becoming the control interface. It begins in the payments back office. Clients
center for client experience. By capturing, structuring and now expect visibility, control and intelligence across the
exposing lifecycle data, from initiation and authorization full transaction lifecycle.
through clearing, fees, disputes and settlement, providers
can offer dashboards, alerts, analytics and AI-driven Investing in back-office modernization that maximizes
insights directly to clients instead of locking that client transparency should not be seen as a cost. It is
intelligence inside operations. seen as a strategic platform investment in long-term
differentiation, trust and growth.
The evolution of the payments back office mirrors the
evolution of payments themselves: from slow, opaque
and batch-based to instant, data-rich and client-facing. Kate Knudsen is a senior program director at BHMI, a leading provider
Providers that modernize this layer aren't just fixing of software solutions focused on the back-office processing of electronic
plumbing; they are, as Knudsen wrote, turning an old cost payments. She has been in the payments industry for more than 30 years
center into a strategic platform for transparency, trust and and is currently leading back-office modernization projects for large
growth. financial services companies. Kate can be reached at kate.knudsen@
bhmi.com or 402-333-3300.

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