Modern Treasury
Modern Treasury Technical Briefing
Published October 14, 2020
Supported by Finix , Routable and The Kauffman Foundation
Overview
Matt Marcus, co-founder of Modern Treasury, walks through the Modern Treasury payment operations platform and demos real-time payments (RTP) over The Clearing House's rails. Modern Treasury is a third-party service provider that deliberately stays out of the flow of funds — one API and dashboard connecting into roughly a dozen corporate banks from JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo down to niche partners, across ACH, wires, EFT in Canada, Bacs in the UK, and proprietary formats like Silvergate's SEN. The demo races a $1 RTP payment to Matt's Chase and Bank of America accounts via the Payment Orders API, walks through the Postman call (amounts in cents, JPMorgan Chase as the originating bank, credit-only, $100k cap, no returns, synchronous success or failure), and closes with the Modern Treasury "dollar demo," where every viewer can pay themselves a real $1 over RTP if their bank supports receiving it.
0:00 Introduction to Modern Treasury
Matt Marcus, co-founder of Modern Treasury, introduces the Modern Treasury payment operations platform — one API and dashboard for fintechs, neobanks, crypto exchanges, lenders, and online marketplaces that move money.
0:30 Origin story — LendingHome, reconciliation, fraud
Why the founders built Modern Treasury after LendingHome — moving money is hard, but the work around money movement (fraud, reconciliation, accounting journal entries, "where's my money" support) is harder, and nothing off-the-shelf existed.
1:30 Not in the flow of funds
Why Modern Treasury deliberately is not a BaaS — it's a third-party service provider connecting into ~12 corporate banks from JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo down to niche partners, not holding customer funds.
2:00 Payment types: ACH, wires, EFT, Bacs, SEN
The full payment-type catalogue — ACH and wires in the US, EFT in Canada, Bacs in the UK, and proprietary bank formats like Silvergate's SEN for crypto.
2:30 Real-time payments via The Clearing House
The focus of the demo: RTP on The Clearing House rails — live for a few years, 24/7/365 including bank holidays, used by PayPal and others to disburse funds instantly.
3:30 Payment Orders API — RTP Postman demo
Walk-through of Modern Treasury's Payment Orders API sending two RTP payments — a race between Chase and Bank of America, originating from Modern Treasury's JPMorgan Chase account in cents.
6:00 RTP limits: $100k, credit-only, irreversible
What makes RTP different from ACH: $100k cap per payment, credit-only (no debits — the protocol has a separate Request-for-Payment flow), synchronous success/failure, and irreversible once settled.
8:00 The dollar demo — audience pays itself $1 over RTP
Audience participation: viewers enter their name, email, and bank details (Plaid-connected or manual routing/account) on modern-treasury.com/dd to receive a real $1 RTP payment.
Presented by Matt Marcus — Modern Treasury · website
Topics: Payments, Treasury, Developer Tools
