Settlement Glossary
RTP network
The RTP network is The Clearing House's instant payment system, live since 2017, which settles US payments individually and irrevocably within seconds, 24/7, with a $10 million transaction limit.
The RTP network broke a long silence: when The Clearing House launched it in 2017, it was the first new core payment infrastructure in the United States since ACH in the 1970s. The proposition is direct. A payment on RTP clears and settles individually within seconds, at any hour of any day, and once settled it is final. There are no batches, no windows, and no cut-off times at the network level.
Settlement works through a joint funding model: participating banks pre-fund a shared account, and RTP moves value between their positions instantly as payments flow, with finality per transaction. The messaging is ISO 20022 end to end, which means a payment can carry structured remittance data, and the network supports request-for-payment flows that let billers ask rather than pull.
The race with FedNow
RTP spent six years as the only US instant rail; since 2023 it has competed with FedNow. The two do not interoperate, so network reach is the battleground. RTP’s participants cluster among larger banks and reach a substantial majority of US demand deposit accounts; FedNow has more institutions but skews smaller. Both raised their transaction limits to $10 million (RTP in February 2025, FedNow that November), a signal that instant rails are moving from consumer convenience toward corporate treasury: supplier payments, payroll funding, merchant settlement, and real-estate closings.
Growth is steep but the base is small next to batch rails. RTP first cleared 2 million payments in a day in February 2026 and set single-day records of 2.27 million transactions worth $8.62 billion on 1 May 2026. ACH, for comparison, averages well over 100 million payments a day. The direction, though, is one-way: value is migrating from scheduled batches to continuous settlement.
Reach
RTP is a domestic dollar rail; its relevance to cross-border payments is as a fast first or last mile, with the international leg settled elsewhere.
Common questions
- What is the RTP network?
- RTP is the first new US core payment rail in decades, launched by The Clearing House in 2017. It clears and settles payments individually within seconds, every hour of every day, with immediate finality and rich ISO 20022 messaging. Banks connect directly or through service providers, and the network reaches the majority of US demand deposit accounts through its participating institutions.
- What is the difference between RTP and FedNow?
- They are competing instant payment rails with the same basic properties: 24/7 operation, settlement in seconds, immediate finality, and a $10 million transaction limit. RTP is private-sector, run by The Clearing House and live since 2017; FedNow is the Federal Reserve's service, live since 2023. They do not interoperate directly, so banks choose to join one or both, and a payment needs both ends on the same network.
- How much volume does RTP handle?
- Volume is growing quickly from a small base relative to ACH. The network first exceeded 2 million payments in a single day in February 2026, and on 1 May 2026 set records of 2.27 million transactions worth $8.62 billion in one day, according to The Clearing House. The February 2025 limit increase to $10 million has pulled in larger corporate flows.
Related terms
Sources
Last reviewed 2026-07-16