What is FedGlobal ACH?

What is FedGlobal ACH?

FedACH is the automated clearing house (ACH) service of the Federal Reserve Banks. As one of two primary ACH operators in the US, the FedACH system processes most commercial-bank-based ACH transactions. The Federal Reserve System (aka the “Fed”), composed of 12 banks and 24 branches, is the central banking system of the US government. FedACH acts as its ACH payment operator and handles millions of transactions each day.

FedGlobal ACH credit payments can be sent to 33 countries worldwide, plus ACH debit payments are available to Canada.

FedGlobal ACH Payments are designed to help those already using the FedACH service expand their global payment options by providing cost-effective, flexible, and easy-to-use cross-border ACH payments. There are three ways to make a FedGlobal ACH transaction.

Fixed-to-Variable USD to Foreign Currency 

In a fixed-to-variable FedGlobal ACH transaction US dollars are converted to a variable amount of foreign currency based on the exchange rate between USD and the destination country’s currency. Settlement between the US financial institution and the Federal Reserve Bank is in USD.

Fixed-to-Fixed (FF) USD to USD

In this type of FedGlobal ACH transaction, the payments are sent and received in US dollars. Settlement between the US financial institution and the Federal Reserve Bank is, again, in USD.

Fixed-to-Fixed (F3X) Foreign Currency to Foreign Currency

Payments are both transferred and received in foreign currency. The foreign exchange rate and settlement is managed and processed by participating U.S. financial institutions and the respective foreign gateway operators via their foreign correspondent banks.

Currently, there are different service areas for each of the three different FedGlobal ACH transaction types.