The RTP network is an instant payment system in the United States owned and operated by The Clearing House, a payments company owned by a group of large commercial banks. It lets customers of participating banks and credit unions send money from one account to another in seconds, at any hour on any day of the year. The recipient has immediate use of the funds, and the payment is final once made.
The network began operating in November 2017 and was the first new core payment system introduced in the United States in more than four decades. It sits alongside the Automated Clearing House network, card networks and wire systems, and since July 2023 it has had a direct counterpart in FedNow, the instant payment service run by the Federal Reserve Banks. The Clearing House also operates CHIPS, a large-value system for wholesale dollar payments.
How a payment works
RTP is a credit push system. Only the payer can start a payment, and no one can pull money from an account through the network. A customer instructs their bank through online banking, a mobile app or a corporate connection. The sending bank checks the balance, screens the payment and sends a message to the network, which validates it and passes it to the receiving bank. The receiving bank accepts or rejects it, and on acceptance the network settles the payment and confirms to both sides. The whole exchange normally takes a few seconds, and the receiving bank must make the funds available immediately.
Messages use the ISO 20022 standard, which allows detailed remittance data to travel with the money. Besides the credit transfer itself, the network carries related messages, including payment acknowledgments, requests for information, requests for return of funds and a request to pay message that lets a biller ask a customer to approve a payment.
Settlement and finality
Each payment is settled individually in real time. There is no netting period and no end-of-day batch. Settlement is backed by a jointly owned account held at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which participants fund in advance. A bank can send payments only up to its share of that balance, so the system does not extend credit and no participant is exposed to the failure of another. Because the network runs through nights, weekends and holidays, banks or their funding agents must keep enough in their pre-funded account position to cover periods when other funding channels are closed.
A completed payment is irrevocable. This payment finality is the main attraction for recipients, who need not wait for a return window to pass. For the same reason, a sender who makes a mistake or is deceived cannot reverse the transfer and must rely on the receiving bank's cooperation with a request for return.
Participants and access
Membership is open to federally insured depository institutions in the United States, whatever their size. Banks can connect directly or through a technical service provider, such as a core banking vendor or a bankers' bank, and may use another institution as funding agent. A bank can choose to receive payments only, which is simpler to implement, or to send and receive.
Businesses, fintech companies and payment processors do not join the network themselves. They reach it through a participating bank, often by API. The Clearing House sets the operating rules, and its pricing is the same per transaction for all participants without volume discounts.
Limits and uses
The network sets a maximum value per transaction, which has been raised in stages as use by businesses has grown. It was originally $25,000, was later lifted to $100,000 and then $1 million, and was increased to $10 million in 2025. Individual banks may set lower limits for their own customers.
Typical uses include payouts to gig workers and sellers, insurance claim payments, payroll, bill payment, transfers between a customer's own accounts at different institutions, and business-to-business invoices where the remittance data is useful. Digital wallets use it to move balances to bank accounts instantly. For platforms it is one of the rails behind an instant payout, alongside push-to-card.
Comparison with other US rails
RTP differs from ACH in that payments are processed one at a time and are final, whereas ACH entries are batched, settle at set times and can be returned. Same Day ACH narrowed the speed gap but does not operate around the clock. A wire transfer over the Fedwire Funds Service is also final and immediate but runs only on business days, has no value limit and usually costs more.
FedNow is the closest equivalent. Both are instant credit-push systems that use ISO 20022, and many banks connect to both. They are not interoperable, in the sense that a payment sent over one cannot be delivered through the other, so reach depends on which network each bank has joined. The main structural difference is ownership: RTP is run by a private company owned by banks, while FedNow is operated by the central bank and settles in accounts at the Federal Reserve.
Fraud considerations
Speed and finality make instant payments attractive to fraudsters. The main threats are account takeover and authorized push payment fraud, in which a victim is persuaded to send money. The network's rules require participants to screen payments and report fraud, and banks apply their own limits, monitoring and customer warnings.