TCH’s Real-Time Payments Network Sets Record With 1.8 Million Daily Transactions

Consumers and businesses increasingly expect to send and receive money immediately. The latest evidence: The Clearing House (TCH) said Thursday that its Real-Time Payments network, the nation’s largest instant payments system, set a new single-day record on Oct. 3, processing more than 1.8 million transactions worth $5.2 billion.

The milestone by the RTP network, which handles 98% of the total instant payments volume in the U.S., reflects a growing push across the banking and financial services industries to make instant payments the norm.

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The record-setting day follows a year of sustained expansion for the network, which now averages more than 1.3 million instant payments daily.

“Seeing 1.8 million payments in a single day underscores the momentum we’re seeing across the instant payments ecosystem,” Jim Colassano, THC’s senior vice president of RTP Business Product Management, said in a news release.

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THC, which is owned by a consortium of major commercial banks including JPMorgan Chase, Citibank and Bank of America, said the increased volume earlier this month was driven by a broad mix of use cases, including digital wallet funding, account-to-account (A2A) transfers, gig economy payouts, and business-to-business (B2B) payments. It also said that high-value payments have continued to rise since the network boosted its transaction limit to $10 million earlier this year. That boost is aimed at supporting complex, time-sensitive transactions like corporate liquidity management, real estate closings and portfolio settlements.

The RTP network offers real-time payment capabilities, enabling instant clearing and settlement and immediate confirmation for federally insured U.S. depository institutions. More than 1,000 banks and credit unions use the system to clear and settle payments in seconds. TCH’s RTP competes with the Federal Reserve’s FedNow Service, launched in March 2023.

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TCH revolutionized U.S. payments in 2017 when it introduced the RTP network as a faster alternative to Automated Clearing House operations, which are run by the Federal Reserve and Electronic Payments Network. ACH processes and settles payments within one to three days.