Please see product description here. The Synctera ACH product provides the ability to create the required operating infrastructure to create ACH credits and debits, file exchange, process incoming ACH files, returns, reversals and settlement for partners.
  • For ACH send, Synctera will play the role of a ‘Third-Party Sender’ of the Originating Depository Financial Institution (ODFI) having an ACH Originating Agreement with the bank and fintech.
  • To receive, Synctera will receive the incoming files from the bank and process payments against the FinTech partner’s accounts in the Synctera platform, in this case playing the role of the RDFI
At a high level, Synctera process three daily incoming files sent by the Sponsor Banks and produces 3 daily outgoing  files per FinTech to be sent out to the network.
StepDescription
1Incoming ACH file from Sponsor bank to Synctera: The sponsor banks will drop the daily incoming files in a Synctera-bank shared folder. Synctera processes 3 incoming daily files per sponsor bank per day Important: Each sponsor bank will have a different exact processing times, being the standard noon 12 E.T, 4pm E.T and 5.30pm E.T.
2Process incoming file per Bank and FinTech and post ACH credits and debits to the FinTech customer account: Synctera will process the incoming file for the bank and divide the file per FinTech. Then the ACH process will post credits and debits to the FinTech customer account. Per each of the postings to a customer account account the lead ledger will post an offsetting posting to the FinTech settlement account. The FinTech settlement account is used to track credits and debits owed by the FinTech to the bank or by the bank to the FinTech and to track funds make sure the bank can reconcile daily payments for the FinTech with the Fed.
3FinTech creates outgoing ACH payments: At any time during the day, FinTech can generate outgoing ACH debit (funding payments to the account) and outgoing ACH credits (debiting the customer account) via API. Each of these payments will have an offsetting payment to the FinTech settlement account for bank daily reconciliation with the FinTech.
4Create outgoing files for FinTech: The Synctera platform creates 3 daily outgoing files for the FinTech to send the outgoing debits and credits (created via API by the user) and returns generated by the incoming file processing Synctera generates 3 files per FinTech per day.Important: Each bank will have a different schedule for the outgoing files, being the standard 10:30 am E.T, 2:45pm E.T and 4:45 pm E.T (an additional one can be requested by the bank at 2:15 am)
5Fed settlement: The Fed will settle the daily incoming and outgoing debits and credits aggregated amounts with the bank for the FinTech. The bank is responsible of the payment from/to the Fed for the FinTech.

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Process Outgoing ACH Files

The Bank will receive Outgoing ACH files 3-times per day. These files are dropped into the FTP folder by Synctera and need to be picked up and sent to the Fed by the Bank at the agreed-upon cutoff time.

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Process Incoming ACH Files

The Bank will receive multiple Incoming ACH files per day. Synctera is able to parse any incoming ACH file and extract information pertaining to the Bank’s partnered FinTechs. The Bank will have a FTP folder with Synctera for ACH. A sub-folder within the ACH folder will be a folder for Incoming ACH files. Bank Ops will drop any incoming ACH files in this folder and Synctera will ingest these files and post them to the Platform

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Reconciliation

Information on ACH reconciliation can be found here.

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Roles & Responsibilities