Mike Thomas
Senior Vice President, Head of Instant Payments
U.S. Bank
Biography
Mike Thomas is a senior payments executive with more than a decade of experience working in instant payments. In his role as the Head of Instant Payments at U.S. Bank, Mike is responsible for expanding the value delivered by Instant Payments across the enterprise: for the bank and each of its customer segments. Under his leadership, U.S. Bank has expanded its products to include both real-time payments and request for payment experiences across consumer, small business, and corporate customers. The bank has also built a growing portfolio of industry use cases for real-time payments ranging from brokerage account funding and merchant services settlement to title payments and earned wage access.
How is the nominee propelling the industry forward?
Mike’s efforts in instant payments have pushed the industry forward over the last decade, and he continues to make contributions through industry leadership roles. In 2013, Mike contributed to FIS’s response to the Federal Reserve’s RFC on whether to create a new real-time settlement infrastructure, encouraging industry collaboration and dialogue to determine efficient paths forward leveraging in-market solutions where possible. Upon joining The Clearing House in 2016, Mike helped lead the launch of the RTP system by defining detailed functional requirements and managing all customer facing documentation, including Message Specifications and Flows. He also launched the first testing and certification tool for Instant Payments in the U.S. during his time at The Clearing House. Mike’s leadership has led to expansion of Request for Payment (RfP) as a key tool for account funding and bill pay. In 2016, Mike co-authored an article in the Journal of Payments Strategy & Systems about the opportunity for Request for Payment to create more transparency and security than traditional debit-based alternatives. He provided key contributions to both RTP and FedNow’s industry working groups advancing RfP, leading to the publication of FedNow’s Request for Payment Customer Experience Work Group’s Market Practices. His advocacy and leadership on Request for Payment has led to significant growth in the service both in origination as well as the acceptance network across the industry. Currently, Mike is Chairman of TCH’s RTP Business Committee, an active participant in the FRB’s FedNow Advisory Council, and an active member of the Faster Payments Council.
Where do you see the nominee succeeding in the future?
Mike will continue his strong industry advocacy efforts to move forward Instant Payments in the U.S., ensuring growth and scale to sustain the newly launched networks and solidify customer value as Instant Payments mature. In his new role as Chairman for The Clearing House’s RTP Business Committee, Mike has a unique opportunity to focus the committee’s efforts on initiatives that will expand volume, reach, and quality of the RTP network. After only his first meeting as Chairman, Mike has already created momentum and broad bank engagement on key topics such as industry solutions needed to truly unlock 24/7 availability, batch/bulk handling guidelines in Instant Payment systems, and the use of RTP to facilitate real-time account validation.