Glossary

Payment rails

What is RTP and FedNow?

RTP and FedNow are the two United States instant payment rails that settle credit transfers in seconds, around the clock, with immediate finality for the receiving party.

Also called instant payments · real time payments · RTP network

The RTP network is operated by The Clearing House and launched in 2017. FedNow is operated by the Federal Reserve and launched in 2023. Both are credit push only, which means funds cannot be pulled from an account by the receiver.

Instant settlement compresses the fraud response window from hours to effectively zero. Controls that relied on a batch window to catch an anomaly before release do not exist on these rails, so verification has to move upstream into the moment the account details are established.

Common questions

They are separate networks with the same shape: RTP is operated by The Clearing House, FedNow by the Federal Reserve. Both settle instantly and both are credit push only.

No. Both networks settle with finality, so a returned payment requires the receiver to send funds back voluntarily.

Sources and further reading

Citing this entry? Cite as Coffr, LLC and link to https://getcoffr.com/glossary/rtp-and-fednow.

Read the longer research behind this in Blog, or browse the full glossary.

Disclosures

  1. Coffr, LLC carries insurance for its own benefit. That insurance does not cover you, your payments or your funds, and Coffr does not guarantee any payment. Coffr does not hold or transmit customer funds. See the Terms of Service.
  2. "Verified" means the identity, business and bank account checks shown passed on the date shown. A verification confirms who you're paying at that time. It doesn't guarantee that a payment will reach the intended recipient.
  3. Coffr records a cryptographic fingerprint of each verification on a public ledger run by independent organizations. Fingerprints contain no names, bank account numbers or tax IDs, and they can't be changed or deleted.
  4. Sources: ACH volume, Nacha 2025 ACH Network volume; online crime losses, FBI IC3 2025 Internet Crime Report.