While commercial real-time payments became available in the U.S. back in 2017, they haven’t yet hit ubiquity. By the end of 2018, the RTP network reached a little more than half of U.S. accounts. But this has been the domain of larger financial institutions, especially when community banks and credit unions are included.
This is shifting, though. Last month, payment company PayFi and The Clearing House (TCH) partnered to bring real-time payment technologies to community banks.
The latest Faster Payments Tracker looks into the newest developments and initiatives related to making faster payments happen.
According to a recent survey, 90 percent of businesses now expect real-time payments – but, as with many innovations, there is a gap between expectations and reality. More than 75 percent of businesses still use paper checks to make or accept payments, and close to half still use cash.