At SixThirty, we believe the future of financial services rests on a bank’s ability to stay at the center of the customer relationship. Few areas demonstrate the urgency of this challenge more than payments.
For decades, banks owned the flow of money. But today, platforms like Venmo, Cash App, and PayPal have captured the attention—and deposits—of millions of customers. By providing instant, seamless, and socially integrated ways to move money, these fintechs have increasingly disintermediated banks, positioning themselves as the default interface for peer-to-peer transactions and even expanding into core financial services.
Meanwhile, financial institutions are weighed down by fragmented, outdated infrastructure. Mid-sized banks and credit unions spend, on average, $3.5 million annually just to maintain legacy systems and navigate new rails like FedNow, RTP, and crypto . The result: costly, slow, and often vulnerable payment experiences that push customers into the arms of disruptors.
A New Rails-Agnostic Payments Engine
Neural Payments was built to give banks and credit unions a way back into the flow of money.
Through a single integration, Neural’s embedded payments engine enables financial institutions to offer secure, real-time payments across all major debit rails. Integrated directly into the digital banking app, Neural allows users to send money instantly, whether the recipient is on- or off-network. For off-network transactions, Neural will be interoperable to the largest digital wallets offered today.
Beyond P2P, Neural is evolving into a full payments hub, offering:
- Disbursements and SMB solutions for bulk payouts and business cash flow management,
- A fraud detection engine that helps institutions stop scams in real time, and
- Account funding tools that allow consumers and fintechs to instantly fund new accounts or wallets .
For banks, this means lower infrastructure costs, greater control over customer experience, and less reliance on third parties. For their customers, it means fast, flexible, and secure money movement—without having to leave their primary financial institution.
Why Now
The P2P payments market alone surpassed $3 trillion in 2024 and is projected to grow more than fivefold by 2034 . At the same time, small and mid-sized businesses are seeking better, faster tools to send and receive money—moving away from slow methods like checks and ACH.
Neural has proven it can deliver. Since launching in 2022, the company has onboarded 82+ financial institutions including Customers Bank, Vystar Credit Union, American Airlines Credit Union, and Trustmark Bank, while processing 250,000 transactions and $45M in volume . With strong channel partnerships in place—including FIS, Alkami, and Q2—Neural is poised to scale quickly across the 8,600+ U.S. financial institutions that need a solution.
Why We Invested
Our investment in Neural Payments is grounded in three convictions:
- The problem is massive and urgent. Legacy systems are costing banks billions annually, while customers and businesses demand real-time, embedded payments.
- The solution is differentiated. Unlike Zelle’s closed network, Neural provides open, customizable, and fraud-resistant payments infrastructure that keeps banks in control .
- The team has the pedigree to execute. CEO Mick Oppy (ex-FIS/Worldpay) and CTO Daniel Norton (previously scaled LeanKit to acquisition) bring the payments and scaling expertise needed for this market .
With validated traction, a scalable platform, and an expanding product roadmap, Neural represents a timely and compelling opportunity. At SixThirty, we’re excited to support the team in helping financial institutions reclaim their role in the flow of money.
👉 Learn more about Neural Payments here.
