Communications of the acm

Mark J. Cotteleer 
([e-mail]) is an 
assistant professor at the Marquette University College of Business
Administration, Milwaukee, WI. 
Christopher A. Cotteleer 
(christopher_cotteleer@ techsol.com)
is a senior vice president of TSC, Chicago. 
Andrew Prochnow 
([e-mail]) is an
equity derivatives trader at Spot Trading, LLC, Chicago. 
© 2007 ACM 0001-0782/07/0600 $5.00 
c
COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM
June 2007/Vol. 50, No. 6
61
bilities into one comprehensive
service. Buyers and suppliers send
complete trade information
(including contracts, pricing,
orders, receipts, and invoices) to
bank systems; the information is
then stored in a document avail-
able to both parties. These plat-
forms seek to provide
comprehensive electronic bill pay-
ment and presentment from the
beginning to the end of the pay-
ment cycle. 
From the standpoint of value
attribute comparisons, ACH-
based payment systems meet
many of the requirements identi-
fied by B2B transaction partici-
pants. The importance of these
attributes is the foundation of his-
torical ACH popularity in facili-
tating relatively small recurring financial transactions
between businesses and consumers. One particularly
troublesome issue is the relatively high implementation
costs of ACH-based platforms, particularly for small-
and medium-size busi-
nesses. This issue further
complicates systems-inte-
gration problems. Another
significant issue plaguing
ACH-based solutions is
that they rely on bilateral
closed networks. This
means that businesses
must share sensitive finan-
cial information, in turn
increasing the risk of
fraud. Global coverage is
another concern with any
form of ACH-based payment, as ACH systems are typ-
ically built for domestic use in the U.S. Due to the
foregoing, along with the lack of other desired charac-
teristics, as in Table 1, ACH-based e-payment systems
have not gained significant traction in the B2B e-pay-
ment market. Despite this, bank proprietary solutions
are well suited for large corporations and government
agencies that execute relatively low- to medium-value
recurring payments within the U.S. (see Table 2).