Real-Time Payments

Real-Time Payments is a instant payment service developed by The Clearing House. It reaches roughly 65% of US depository accounts. It’s USD only.

Each participating financial institution maintains a balance in a shared New York Federal Reserve account to fund their account holders’ activity. This allows interbank settlement to happen immediately.

Unlike wires, Real-Time Payments doesn’t have a culture of manual intervention. This leads to more immediate and deterministic operations.

Availability

The network is always available, excepting scheduled downtime for maintenance. Transactions are confirmed by receiving institutions in real-time.

Support

Real-Time Payments works well but because support isn’t as widespread as ACH you need a fallback.

You can see if a routing number supports Real-Time Payments using our Routing Number endpoint (https://increase.com/documentation/api#routing-numbers).

Message format

Real-Time Payments use the ISO 20022 messaging format, which defines a wide ontology of financial services metadata. The FedNow service uses the same format.

Limits

Real-Time Payments are subject to limits by The Clearing House. As of August 2023, the per-transaction limit is $1,000,000, the same as the NACHA same-day clearing.

Request for Payment

Real-Time Payments supports a "Request for Payment" mechanism. This feature allows beneficiaries to request funds from another party. The user experience varies by institution.

Rejections, not reversals

Real-Time Payments transfers can fail. Common reasons are that the receiving account number details aren’t valid or the account has been closed. Once they succeed, Real-Time Payments cannot be reversed or returned.

Zelle is a digital payments network with a similar profile. Zelle payments can be settled over the Real-Time Payments network, but they are not interoperable.