North American Real-Time Payments Reach Turning Point as FedNow, RTP Volumes Set to Surge

Real-time payments in the United States have long been driven by The Clearing House's RTP network, while the Federal Reserve launched FedNow on July 20, 2023, enabling banks to clear payments instantly around the clock. The two rails give financial institutions more choice and have implications for corporate liquidity management, the speed of consumer payments and fraud prevention. Adoption has therefore become a key measure of payments modernization in North America.

The North American market has recently shifted from network deployment to broader real-world use. Major banks including Capital One and PNC Bank have connected to FedNow or RTP to improve payment efficiency and reduce fraud risk. As use cases expand across payroll, bill payments and corporate transactions, U.S. real-time payment volume is projected to reach 13.9 billion transactions by 2028, with growth increasingly driven by high-frequency use.