Unum’s Treasury team was managing a sprawling payments operation, sending files from roughly 20 administrative systems and relying on a patchwork of banking partners to get payments where they needed to go. The process worked, but it left the team with limited visibility into whether files arrived as expected and little ability to quickly identify or resolve issues.6
New Nacha data security requirements added urgency to the situation, but the need for change ran deeper. Customer expectations for speed and transparency were rising, and Unum saw a chance to rethink both its payments operations and how it served the people who depend on them.7
As Ben Katz, Group Treasurer at Unum, explains, each legacy administrative system sent payment files independently to various banking partners, creating a web of processes that required significant coordination and left Treasury without a clear, centralized view of payment activity. Additionally, much of the payment file management sat within IT. This meant that Treasury lacked direct control over their payment processing system and had to rely on other teams to identify and resolve issues.
Unum needed a single, integrated platform that could consolidate disparate systems, enhance traceability and visibility, handle both pay-ins and pay-outs, and safeguard sensitive customer information. The solution also needed to support next-generation digital payment options while meeting new Nacha compliance standards for protecting bank account information.9
Unum found what it was looking for in J.P. Morgan Concourse, a bi-directional payments platform from our Embedded Finance suite of solutions.9 Aligned with Nacha requirements to help prevent fraud, Concourse provides Unum with a tokenized solution for capturing and storing bank account information — reducing the footprint of sensitive data and helping lower fraud and exposure risk.9 But what made it the right fit was its versatility, as it helps Unum handle both premium collections and claim disbursements on a single system. Concourse also offers access to a wide range of payment methods, from ACH to emerging digital options, which enables clients to pay their preferred way.10