How a push payment works
The payer gives the payee's details, an IBAN, a card number or a wallet address, and authenticates with the sending provider. That provider checks the balance, debits the account and sends the money over a rail to the payee's provider.
PSD2 describes a credit transfer in these terms: the provider that holds the payer's account credits the payee's account on the payer's instruction. The payer's own provider has already checked the funds, so a push cannot bounce for lack of money the way a pull can.
Push payments and fraud
Finality cuts both ways. A merchant paid by push has no chargeback to fear, and a payer who was tricked into sending money has no card scheme process to get it back.
That is the opening for authorised push payment fraud, in which the victim willingly pays into a criminal's account. Checks made before the payment carry the weight: in the EU, the Instant Payments Regulation requires verification of the payee, a comparison of the payee's name with the IBAN, before the payer authorises a credit transfer.
Where products use push payments
Payouts, salary runs, supplier payments, remittances, account top-ups and pay by bank at a checkout are all pushes. So is every withdrawal from an exchange or a wallet.
Push payment or pull payment?
- Pull payment
- The payee initiates, under consent given beforehand, as with a card or a direct debit. A pull can be declined or disputed, and the payer has refund or chargeback rights.
- Request to pay
- A message that asks the payer to make a push. The payer still approves and sends the payment.
Where a push payment shows up in a platform
Modules that do the work
- PayoutsMoney out to bank accounts, cards and wallets, on the rail that fits each payment.
- Accounts & IBANsCustomer accounts with their own IBANs, on the partner bank and the rails you choose.
- Fraud & riskReal-time fraud scoring, limits and case management, with the risk engines you already trust.
- LedgerThe double-entry book of record behind every balance, fee and transfer.
Platforms that need it
Where it is written
The laws and standards this page's facts come from.
- Directive (EU) 2015/2366, PSD2, Article 4(24) (EUR-Lex)
- Regulation (EU) 2024/886, the Instant Payments Regulation, Article 5c as inserted (EUR-Lex)
General information, not legal advice: what applies to you depends on your services and your market.