Alacriti Launches Nationwide Payments Masterclass Roadshow for Financial Institutions

Alacriti is launching a nationwide masterclass series to help financial institutions bridge the gap between current instant payment rails and emerging digital assets. For fintech leaders, this initiative addresses the critical challenge of orchestrating RTP, FedNow, and Visa Direct alongside the looming integration of stablecoins and tokenized deposits into traditional banking infrastructures.

What was announced

The roadshow, titled “From Instant Payments to Digital Money: Creating Your Payments Roadmap,” is a collaborative effort between Alacriti and several regional payments associations, including Wespay, UMACHA, PaymentsFirst, and EPCOR. The curriculum is designed specifically for payments executives and product leaders who are currently managing the transition to real-time environments. The sessions will provide deep dives into the RTP network, the FedNow Service, Visa Direct, and Zelle, while also covering cross-border transactions and digital money. Attendees will gain access to exclusive Alacriti data analysis regarding adoption trends, transaction patterns, and emerging use cases.

The masterclass schedule includes several key dates across the United States:

• September 11: Las Vegas at the Wespay Payments Symposium, featuring Jakub Petri, Vice President - Global Sales and Partnerships (FIs, Fintechs, Enablers, Merchants) at Visa, Dan Gonzalez at the Federal Reserve, and Keith Gray at The Clearing House.
• September 23: Brooklyn Center, MN, at the UMACHA Navigating Payments Conference, featuring Emily Braziel at Royal Credit Union.
• September 28: Middleton, WI, at the PaymentsFirst Solutions Payments Conference.
• November 2: Kansas City, KS, at EPCOR Paymentspalooza, featuring Kris Varma at Visa, Dan Gonzalez at the Federal Reserve, and Steve Douglass at The Clearing House.

The series follows a virtual kickoff held in August with the Southern Financial Exchange, which included insights from Brad Nightengale at Visa and Rusiru Gunasena, SVP, Head of Business Development for Service Providers at The Clearing House.

"Every payments decision a financial institution makes today determines what's possible tomorrow. The challenge is that you've got instant payments, stablecoins, and tokenized deposits all emerging at once. Alacriti built its entire platform around helping financial institutions navigate this complexity in real time. Our masterclasses are an extension of our mission to educate the financial institution market on the future of payments, and help them make confident decisions about the future."

Mark Majeske, senior vice president of faster payments at Alacriti.

The companies involved

Alacriti is a cloud-based payment technology provider focused on money movement solutions for financial institutions. The company positions its platform as a tool for navigating real-time complexity in an increasingly fragmented market. Joining them in this series are major industry pillars like Visa, the global payments leader, and The Clearing House, which operates the RTP network and serves as a core component of the U.S. financial infrastructure.

The roadshow relies heavily on the support of regional payments associations. These include Wespay, UMACHA, PaymentsFirst, and EPCOR—organizations that serve as critical educational and advocacy hubs for banks and credit unions across the United States. Also involved is the Southern Financial Exchange, another regional body dedicated to payment systems. These associations play a vital role in the U.S. payments ecosystem by providing training and ensuring compliance among smaller and mid-sized financial institutions, such as Royal Credit Union, which are often the primary targets for modernization efforts as they compete with larger national banks and agile fintech challengers.

What FF News has reported before

FF News has extensively covered Visa’s efforts to expand its digital and credit capabilities globally. This includes the recent announcement that Visa, _able, and Onafriq Partner to Expand Visa Flex Credential Across CEMEA Markets. We also reported on infrastructure developments such as when REPAY Signs Reseller Agreement with Visa to Empower ISOs and ISVs with Direct Visa Platform Connect Access. Additionally, our coverage has touched on consumer-facing innovations like Anytap Launches Visa-Powered Payment Cards Across Asia Pacific to Bridge Digital and Fiat Spending. While Alacriti is a newer focus for our reporting, these partnerships with The Clearing House and Visa highlight the ongoing maturation of the U.S. real-time payments landscape.

What this means

This initiative highlights a growing anxiety within the banking sector: the fear of "rail fatigue." Financial institutions are currently under immense pressure to support a fragmented landscape of RTP, FedNow, and private networks like Zelle. By framing the conversation around "digital money" like stablecoins and tokenized deposits, Alacriti is signaling that the industry's work is far from over once instant payments are implemented. The real needle-mover here is the focus on orchestration. For the market, the question is no longer which rail to choose, but how to manage a multi-rail environment without overwhelming legacy core banking systems. This puts pressure on legacy providers to either innovate or risk being bypassed by cloud-native orchestration layers.