What Does AAP Mean?

Accredited Automated Clearing House Professional (AAP) is a professional designation awarded by NACHA (The Electronic Payments Association) to individuals who are experts in electronic payments. Successful applicants earn the right to use the AAP designation with their names for five years, which can improve job opportunities, professional reputation and pay. Every five years, AAP professionals must complete 60 hours of continuing education or successfully retest in order to continue using the designation.

Understanding AAP

To pass the Accredited Automated Clearing House Professional (AAP) exam, applicants should understand ACH rules and regulations, operational requirements, ACH products and applications, the electronic payments cycle, risk management, marketing ACH services, providing ACH-related customer service and more. It is also helpful to have at least two years of professional experience working with ACH payments. Individuals with the AAP designation may work for financial institutions such as banks and credit unions as well as federal or state government entities that process electronic payments.

NACHA serves a dual mandate. Firstly, it administers the ACH Network, which most readers will know from Direct Deposits and Direct Payments occurring as ACH transactions. Secondly, NACHA serving as a not-for-profit association supporting the broad payments industry. As stewards of one of the world's largest electronic payment systems, NACHA's influence continues to grow. The Automated Clearing House Network, ACH, moves more than $41 trillion and 24 billion electronic financial transactions annually.

To address the growing threat of cybersecurity, NACHA's newest designation, Accredited Payments Risk Professional (APRP), recognizes professionals for their exceptional payments systems risk expertise. To earn the APRP designation, individuals must demonstrate a comprehensive knowledge of risk management strategies, concepts, and mitigation techniques within the payments ecosystem.