Payment System

A draft requirements document is included with this RFI notice for additional context about what is needed, and is intended to establish a baseline. Treasury is actively seeking feedback on areas that may be overly restrictive or limit commercial innovation.

The information below summarizes Treasury’s current thinking and is intended to facilitate informed and constructive industry feedback.

2. ANTICIPATED CONTRACTUAL MODEL. Any award to support this requirement will likely be procured in the following manner:

• Treasury is primarily interested in direct relationships with payment platform owners rather than resellers, aggregators, or other intermediaries. However, Treasury may consider responses from other organizations that can demonstrate unique value in this space.
• Small businesses that partner with or resell the required capabilities should clearly describe their value proposition and relationship structure with the OEM.
• A multiple award Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract, or a similarly flexible contractual vehicle, directly with payment platform owners. The contract(s) will be available for use across the Treasury enterprise and by other Federal entities.
• The resulting award will likely include an onramp/offramp capability to ensure continued competition and access to cutting edge approaches/technologies in this space.
• The anticipated period of performance is one base year with up to four option years.
• Evaluation of the contracts (or orders) may use streamlined or alternative approaches, such as oral presentations, demonstrations, or comparative evaluations.
• Treasury is particularly interested in pricing approaches that reflect direct OEM engagement, high-volume government usage, and provides the government with the most favorable economics relative to standard commercial offerings.

NOTE: There is no incumbent contractor currently supporting this effort.

3. APPLICABLE CODES

• NAICS: 522320 – Financial Transactions Processing, Reserve, and Clearinghouse Activities
• PSC: 7A21 - Business Application/Application Development Software as a Service

4. EVALUATION CRITERIA (ANTICIPATED). Quotes or submissions for any resulting solicitation may be evaluated based on some or all of the following criteria:

4.1 Technical Capability and Platform Maturity

Under such a factor, the Government may consider:

• Breadth and maturity of payment processing capabilities, including support for required payment methods and transaction types;
• Fraud prevention, risk management, and chargeback handling effectiveness;
• Scalability and demonstrated ability to support high transaction volumes with consistent performance;
• Quality and usability of reporting, reconciliation, and financial transparency features;
• Ease of integration and flexibility of deployment options (e.g., APIs, hosted solutions);
• Demonstrated experience providing similar payment processing services to organizations of comparable size and complexity.

4.2 Security and Regulatory Compliance

Under such a factor, the Government may consider:

• PCI-DSS compliance status and overall security architecture;
• FedRAMP authorization status (or clear path to authorization, if applicable);
• Strength of encryption, access controls, monitoring, and incident response capabilities;
• Ability to support audit, oversight, and regulatory reporting requirements.

4.3 Cost Efficiency and Pricing Structure

Under such a factor, the Government may consider:

• Overall competitiveness of transaction-based pricing;
• Transparency and clarity of all fees and cost drivers;
• Pricing flexibility to accommodate varying transaction volumes;
• Cost predictability over the period of performance.

4.4 Value-Added Capabilities and Innovation

Under such a factor, the Government may consider:

• Enhanced fraud analytics or risk intelligence tools;
• Advanced reporting, dashboards, or data insights;
• Support for emerging payment methods or technologies;
• Tools that improve user experience or reduce administrative burden;
• Continuous improvement and product enhancement roadmap.

4.5 Implementation and Transition Approach

Under such a factor, the Government may consider:

• Proposed implementation methodology, including timeline and key milestones;
• Approach to migrating existing payment processes, accounts, and historical data (if applicable);
• Identification and mitigation of transition risks;
• Testing, validation, and cutover strategy;
• Training and onboarding support for users and administrators;
• Ability to minimize operational disruption during implementation.

5. INFORMATION TO INCLUDE IN A RESPONSE TO THIS NOTICE. Vendors responding to this notice are asked to provide the following:

• Company name;
• Unique Entity ID (UEI);
• Business size (and socio-economic status, if applicable);
• Existing government contract vehicles, if any, through which your company currently provides access to Payment System functionality;
• Questions, clarification needs, or recommendations to refine the requirement or contractual approach (limited to 30 questions and up to 25 recommendations);
• Identification of potential barriers to participation;
• Responses to the following question (limited to 1 page per question) – brevity and clarity are encouraged and tables and diagrams may be used within the specified page limit:

• Describe your end-to-end payment processing capabilities, including authorization, settlement, funding, reconciliation, refunds, and chargeback management.
• Identify all payment methods supported and note any limitations relevant to large federal or enterprise customers.
• Describe your experience supporting federal agencies or organizations of similar size, complexity, and transaction volume.
• Provide representative peak and sustained transaction volumes currently supported in production environments, including examples of similarly scaled customers (anonymized if necessary).
• Provide your current PCI-DSS certification level and FedRAMP authorization status (if applicable). If not authorized, describe the feasibility and anticipated timeline for achieving FedRAMP authorization.
• Describe your hosting environment (cloud/on-premises), multi-tenant or dedicated architecture, and data segregation model.
• Describe available integration methods (e.g., APIs, hosted payment pages, SDKs) and the typical level of effort required to onboard a large organization.
• Describe your transaction pricing structure in sufficient detail to allow Treasury to estimate total cost of ownership under varying transaction volumes and payment method mixes. Identify variables that most significantly impact cost (e.g., card mix, ACH ratio, interchange variability, chargeback rates), and indicate whether pricing can be normalized across large federal customers.
• Indicate whether your solution is offered as a standard commercial service and identify typical contracting vehicles used by public sector customers.
• Describe data ownership, reporting export capabilities, and transition considerations at contract end.
• Identify any capabilities in the draft requirements that your platform cannot currently support without material modification.
• Identify whether your platform is purpose-built for government use or adapted from commercial offerings, and describe any material differences in architecture or compliance posture for federal customers.
• Identify any capabilities that materially distinguish your platform from competitors serving large public-sector customers.
• Based on your understanding of the draft requirements, are there any elements that would materially limit competition within the commercial payment processing market? If so, identify the specific requirement and explain why.
• Identify any requirements that may be achievable through alternative commercial approaches that differ from the draft requirements, and describe those approaches.
• Describe your funds flow model, including whether you operate as a processor, intermediary, or fiscal agent, and how funds are segregated and reconciled.
• Describe your ability to integrate with federal identity providers (e.g., Login.gov, SAML, OIDC, PIV/CAC).

Vendors are kindly requested not to provide marketing materials as they are not useful for the purpose of this Notice and will not be reviewed.

6. PILOT OFFERING AND DEMONSTRATION OPPORTUNITY (OPTIONAL)

Treasury is considering the use of pilot or phased evaluation engagements, which may include time-limited sandbox testing and/or limited-scope operational demonstrations with interested vendors to better understand commercial capabilities, implementation considerations, and operational impacts prior to finalizing its acquisition strategy. Vendors are invited to indicate whether they are willing and able to participate in such a pilot.

Participation in any pilot activity is voluntary and is conducted solely for market research purposes. Participation will not be evaluated, scored, ranked, or used as a basis for down-select. Participation does not create a competitive advantage or disadvantage and will not affect a vendor’s eligibility to compete under any resulting solicitation. Participation does not obligate the Government to issue a solicitation or make an award.

Limitations

• No mission-critical or statutory reliance will be placed on pilot functionality.
• Limited integration testing may occur within segregated test environments; no live production integration is permitted.
• Transaction processing may be simulated and, if approved in writing by the Government, may include limited live financial transactions involving real funds under controlled conditions.
• Vendors may provide feedback on draft requirements; however, the Government retains sole authorship and control of the final requirements documentation.
• Configuration of commercially available functionality is permitted; development of custom features during the RFI stage is not permitted.
• The pilot will be time-limited or structured as a sandbox-based evaluation environment.

Data & Security Controls

• Only synthetic or sanitized data will be used unless the Agency provides prior written approval for limited use of alternative data.
• No PII, payment data, or production financial data will be used without prior written Agency authorization and implementation of appropriate security controls.
• No connection to production networks is permitted unless expressly authorized in writing by the Agency and approved through established cybersecurity processes.
• No Authority to Operate (ATO) is implied by participation in this pilot or evaluation activity.
• Vendors must disclose the hosting environment and applicable security posture, including FedRAMP authorization status (if cloud-based).
• Vendors may not retain, reuse, or repurpose any Government-provided evaluation data beyond the authorized testing period.
• All access will be terminated at the conclusion of the evaluation period, and vendors must certify data disposition in writing.

Interested vendors should address the following:

• Describe your ability to support a time-limited, sandbox-based pilot using commercially available functionality.
• Identify the type of access that could be provided (e.g., test tenant, evaluation licenses, API sandbox, hosted demonstration environment).
• Describe the level of configuration support provided during a pilot (commercial configuration only; no custom development).
• Identify the typical duration required for meaningful evaluation and any associated constraints.
• Describe any pricing considerations for pilot participation (e.g., no-cost evaluation, discounted access, standard commercial rates).
• Identify any technical, security, or contractual prerequisites for establishing a sandbox environment.
• Describe the types of performance metrics, transaction reporting, or operational analytics that could be made available during the pilot period.

7. HOW TO SUBMIT A RESPONSE TO THIS NOTICE. Responses to this Notice shall be:

• Submitted via email to [email protected]
• Use the subject line: “Treasury Notice – Payment System – April 2026”;
• Be provided in searchable Adobe PDF format (version 7.x or earlier), with at least 0.5-inch margins and no smaller than 10-point font;
• Be submitted no later than 2:00 PM Eastern Time on 13 April 2026. Responses received after this date and time may not be considered.

IMPORTANT NOTES:

• This notice is *NOT* a solicitation and does not obligate the Government to issue one or to award a contract.
• The government will not acknowledge receipt or provide feedback on submissions.
• Responses are not considered offers and cannot be accepted by the Government to form a binding agreement.
• The government will not reimburse any costs incurred in responding to this notice nor return any data provided.
• Submitted information may be used in development of future acquisition strategies or solicitations.
• Respondents should ensure all provided information provided is complete, accurate, and sufficiently detailed as it may be used for making acquisition approach decisions or better refine its requirements.
• The government may elect to engage further with some, all, or none of the respondents to this Notice.