How a real-time payment works
The payer's provider checks the funds, reserves or debits the amount and sends the payment at once through an instant clearing system. The payee's provider credits the account and confirms, and both customers are told the result.
There is no cut-off time and no batch. Providers settle with each other continuously or from pre-funded positions, so their liquidity has to be available at night and at weekends.
Each currency area runs its own system: SEPA Instant Credit Transfer for the euro, Faster Payments in the UK.
What the EU's Instant Payments Regulation requires
Regulation (EU) 2024/886 obliges providers that offer ordinary euro credit transfers to offer instant ones too, at charges no higher. Providers in the euro area had to receive instant transfers by 9 January 2025 and send them by 9 October 2025.
Payment institutions and electronic money institutions in the euro area have until 9 April 2027. If the payee's provider has not confirmed within 10 seconds, the payer's provider must immediately restore the payer's account.
Why real-time payments matter to a product
Instant rails make pay by bank, instant payouts and round-the-clock top-ups possible. They also remove the time in which a mistaken or fraudulent payment could be stopped, so screening and payee checks run before the payment, in milliseconds.
Operations change too: monitoring and support cover every hour of the year.
Real-time payment or ordinary transfer?
- Ordinary credit transfer
- Processed in cycles on business days. PSD2 allows until the end of the following business day for the amount to reach the payee's provider.
- Card payment
- Authorised in real time, but the merchant receives the funds later, after clearing and settlement.
- Real-time gross settlement
- Central banks' systems for large payments between banks. Real time as well, but built for the interbank market, not for retail payments.
Where a real-time payment shows up in a platform
Modules that do the work
- Accounts & IBANsCustomer accounts with their own IBANs, on the partner bank and the rails you choose.
- PayoutsMoney out to bank accounts, cards and wallets, on the rail that fits each payment.
- 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.
- Regulation (EU) 2024/886, the Instant Payments Regulation (EUR-Lex)
- European Payments Council, SEPA Instant Credit Transfer
- Directive (EU) 2015/2366, PSD2, Article 83 (EUR-Lex)
General information, not legal advice: what applies to you depends on your services and your market.