Real-Time Payments

Real-Time Payments are new to the United States and the list of supported banks continues to grow. Today, the RTP® Network reaches 70% of demand deposit accounts (DDAs) in the United States. View the full list of participating financial institutions here.

Yes! We’ve intentionally built our Real-Time Payment solution to unlock the power of the RTP® Network by only updating a single line of code in an API request. There are no new endpoints, which allows a business to offer both ACH and RTP in conjunction. For end users, simply attach a RTP-enabled bank account and enter the receiving bank account information before initiating an RTP transaction.

The Clearing House’s RTP® Network brings participating banks together in a common agreement to recognize each other’s transactions in real time. Dwolla’s real-time payment API sends your payment instructions to our financial institution partners, who initiate funds transfers on the RTP® Network. Your interaction with the Dwolla API is consistent regardless of whether you are sending an ACH or RTP transaction, requiring only a small code change to let the API know that you want to send your transaction via RTP. There are no new bank account verification processes needed. For end users, the process to link a bank account does not change and Dwolla’s API identifies eligible bank accounts automatically.

Real-Time Payments do cost more than standard ACH transactions. With Dwolla, businesses can bundle RTP transactions into a single monthly subscription or pay a flat fee per RTP transaction. Rather than being subject to a hefty percentage fee of each transaction, the flat fee pricing gives a business the opportunity to capitalize on a lower cost.

Because RTP transactions are intended to be instantaneous and irrevocable, the RTP® Network does not have an automated returns process like what you may have experienced in ACH transactions or chargebacks in the credit card networks. If a RTP transaction is sent in error, the sending financial institution has the option to request the funds be returned in certain circumstances, but the receiving financial institution is not obligated to return the funds.

Real-time payments with Dwolla are balance-sourced transactions, meaning the real-time payment credit must be sent from the Dwolla Balance. A business could preload its balance before sending a real-time payment for an invoice to another business. An insurance company could issue a reimbursement to a policyholder from its balance, via RTP. As long as the receiver has an RTP-enabled financial institution and funds are available in the Dwolla Balance, you can use Dwolla’s RTP API to initiate an RTP transaction.