Tyfone Partners with Silicon Valley-Based Star One Credit Union

Portland, Ore. – Digital banking innovator Tyfone, Inc. today announced its strategic partnership with Star One Credit Union to implement the credit union’s new instant payment solution, which has been certified for FedNow^SM, the Federal Reserve’s new, highly anticipated instant payment offering launching in July 2023.

Tyfone partnered with Star One Credit Union to build the new platform-agnostic solution, which will seamlessly integrate into financial institutions’ core processing systems and enable connectivity to payment originators and digital banking providers through Tyfone’s open API’s. Through financial institutions participating in the FedNow Service, account holders can send and receive payments any time, any day, anywhere, and have full access to those funds immediately.

This latest Tyfone solution will allow financial institutions of all sizes to directly connect to the FedNow Service for credit transfer send and receive message sets, with additional message sets to be launched soon. Furthering this initiative, Star One has also completed its certification for the FedNow Service, making it one of the credit union industry’s first adopters, earning this designation after thorough testing and ensuring the ability to operate in an instant payments environment.

With over $10.2 billion in assets, Star One Credit Union is one of Silicon Valley’s largest financial institutions and ranks 19^th in total assets among all U.S. credit unions. By partnering on this effort, Star One and Tyfone worked together to create an instant payment offering that will not only serve Star One and its members but will also be a payment originator and digital banking platform-agnostic solution designed from a financial institution’s unique perspective to ensure it meets the needs of financial institutions across the country.

“Together with Tyfone, we are advancing instant payments adoption in the United States and helping to fulfill the end-to-end instant payment ecosystem,” said Minal Gupta, VP of Remote Services of Star One Credit Union. “We look forward to working with Tyfone’s team to create a solution for financial institutions of all sizes, regardless of what payment providers or digital banking platform they use.”

“Today’s consumers and businesses not only want quick, simple, and instant ways to facilitate payments, but they expect a unified, consistent user experience,” said Tyfone CEO Dr. Siva Narendra. “Our partnership with Star One Credit Union allows us to build a solution that aligns with financial institution’s unique needs and ensures greater accessibility. Our goal is to help scale this service and unlock the tremendous potential instant payments offer financial institutions and account holders.”

Narendra went on to cite that nearly 90 percent of financial institutions, payments facilitators, and other businesses are currently preparing to implement FedNow, according to a survey released during the Nacha Smarter Faster Payments conference in April. However, over half of the respondents believe that the biggest challenge to faster payment adoption is the limited availability of services and interoperability. Over 71 percent said it was “very important” for faster payments to achieve interoperability with other such systems, according to the results released.

The survey also outlined the biggest potential use cases for faster payments, with person-to-person payments cited the most at 49 percent, followed by payment disbursements at 46 percent, and bill pay at 45 percent. Also worth noting is that while 80 percent of respondents say they had implemented Zelle – ranking second only behind same-day ACH payments – it had low ratings, pointing to a need for better payment solutions that leverage FedNow.

At present, Tyfone’s digital banking platform and platform-agnostic digital business solutions have been adopted by over 100 community financial institutions across the nation. Tyfone’s technologies are available to nearly 10 million account holders providing efficient and seamless digital access. With the implementation of an instant payment solution, both as a standalone and as an integrated service, Tyfone fortifies its standing as a premier digital provider for community financial institutions. This strategic positioning is set to broaden the reach of instant payments to millions of Americans, further transforming the landscape of digital financial transactions.

About Star One Credit Union

Star One Credit Union started over 60 years ago and provides financial services to people who live, regularly work or attend school in Alameda County, Merced County, Monterey County, San Benito County, San Joaquin County, San Mateo County, Santa Clara County, Santa Cruz County, and Stanislaus County. Star One also offers membership to employees of some of Silicon Valley’s most prominent companies, including Lockheed Martin, Lam Research, and Juniper Networks to name a few. Star One Credit Union serves more than 123,000 members with branches throughout Silicon Valley and offers a variety of products and services including checking, savings, certificate, and IRA accounts, and consumer, home equity, and first mortgage loans. Star One is part of a nationwide network of 30,000 no-surcharge ATMs and 5,000 shared credit union locations in all 50 states.