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The Column<br />
By Chuck Van Riper<br />
The Green Shirt Debacle<br />
decided I needed a new shirt, so I head on down to the<br />
I local JC Penny, because I’m a classy friggin guy! I go<br />
straight to the sale rack and find a green shirt marked down<br />
from $58 to $17.99. Great! I head to the cashier and use<br />
my debt card to pay for it. As I’m paying for it, I hear the<br />
familiar ding alerting me to the fact that some purchase<br />
has been made on my card, instantly. Cool. I get home<br />
a few minutes later and put on my new purchase. It’s terrible,<br />
no wonder it only cost $17.99. It wasn’t even worth<br />
that! Why did I buy a green shirt? I never wear green. It<br />
looks terrible on me. I don’t even like green. Did I have<br />
some sort of temporary color blindness or did I just buy<br />
it because it was supposedly a good deal without contemplating<br />
the resulting disgust? Was it temporary insanity?<br />
At any rate, I had to return it. So, I head back to the store<br />
and return the item. I’m told my money would be refunded<br />
in 7-10 business days. Why? It took seconds to take it<br />
out of my account, yet they can’t put it back immediately?<br />
And why “business days”? Can’t they make an electronic<br />
transaction on a Saturday? Why would that be? If only<br />
there was a system where payments could be made at any<br />
time, day or night, and take place instantly. Well, maybe<br />
now there will be.<br />
First we have to look at “Real Time Payments”, or RTP.<br />
RTP has been around for a while. Since 2017, the Clearing<br />
House RTP has been one of the main services proving<br />
interoperability to banks and payment services like Western<br />
Union and more currently services like Zelle, which<br />
is now used by many banks and credit unions. Venmo is<br />
another example. Still, depending on banking infrastructure,<br />
it takes a while to get money back. This may be because<br />
a bank may process electronic processes once a day<br />
or once a week, depending on the bank. So refunds and<br />
such might take a while. The banks make money on these<br />
transactions by charging a fee. The fees usually vary depending<br />
on the amount of the transfer. There is actually a<br />
government agency working on these things. Really!<br />
Since 2015, the Federal Reserve has convened the<br />
18 - Brevard Live May 2023
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