Volante Technologies, the global enabler of Payments as a Service (PaaS), recently announced that Lakeside Bank, a community bank with over $2.64 billion in assets that specializes in serving mid-sized and larger businesses in Chicago, has selected Volante’s Payments as a Service (PaaS) in order to improve its SWIFT messaging and implement end-to-end real-time payments via RTP from The Clearing House and FedNow from the Federal Reserve.
Choosing Volante as a partner comes after steady growth for Lakeside, which reportedly saw 16.5% overall asset growth from the period between 2022 to 2023.
The Treasury Management division has added a “record” number of clients during this period, enhancing Lakeside’s presence as a key player in a competitive environment.
In order to build on this positive trajectory, Lakeside began its payments modernization collaboration with Volante with SWIFT pre-processing in an effort to ensure ISO 20022 compliance for cross-border payments ahead of upcoming deadlines.
The collab is now mainly focused on the deployment of real-time payments with RTP, marking a key advancement in Lakeside’s ability to provide real-time treasury services to clients.
Working with Volante is vital in leveling the playing field between Lakeside Bank and the world’s largest financial institutions as they seek to add new services such as real-time payments from RTP and FedNow.
Volante’s Payments as a Service empowers them to reportedly offer faster, more efficient, and reliable services that rival those of the largest banks.
Lakeside Bank’s commercial clients are now sharply focused on further “optimizing” cash flow, enhancing liquidity management, and mitigating risk.
Lakeside has identified Volante as a treasury management services partner that helps the bank embrace new technology, expand its digital payment solutions, and “offer customers more advanced real-time data analytics tools.”
The launch of real-time payments provides advantages.
For example, businesses handling large volumes of transactions, like retailers and service providers, can benefit from the immediate availability of funds, “improving cash flow and reducing the need for short-term financing.”
In addition to this, businesses are able to reliably execute transactions with speed, reducing settlement risks and “enhancing client satisfaction.”
In prioritizing cross-border payments and real-time payments, Lakeside is part of a broader global modernization movement.
According to a survey shared in a blog post by Volante, more than 90% of financial institutions plan to expand their real-time cross-border payment networks by 2025.
Meanwhile, the U.S. is currently said to be processing more than a million real-time payments every day with RTP from The Clearing House and FedNow instant payment networks live, and the global shift to ISO 20022 continues to “transform payment infrastructures.”
Lakeside joins a number of financial institutions that have adopted Volante’s PaaS to achieve their payments modernization goals.