Instant Payments
Cross River is proud to offer a suite of domestic Instant Payments products. Instant payments allow individuals and businesses to transmit funds that clear and settle within seconds between US DDAs (account where funds can be deposited and withdrawn at any time) at different US-based financial institutions. Cross River (CR) uses the following payment network platforms to route its instant payments:
- RTP® via The Clearing House. The Clearing House (TCH) provides Instant Payments using its RTP® system. All federally insured US depository institutions that participate in the RTP network can send payments from and receive payments to their accounts 24/7.
- FedNow®. The Federal Reserve's instant payment infrastructure allows financial institutions of every size across the U.S. to provide safe and efficient 24/7 instant payment services.
Instant Payments are not permitted for foreign payments. These are domestic-only networks, which means that an instant payment cannot be sent to a foreign bank. To further elaborate, Instant Payments may not be used at any point in a transaction flow where the funds are either being sent to or received from a foreign bank. The Instant Payment leg of a flow of funds must be considered a separate transaction from the foreign payment leg.
- Any US-based bank can join either Instant Payments network to send domestic transactions.
Both sending and receiving banks must be part of the same Instant Payments network to send a payment over that network. Each participating bank on either network is registered by their routing number(s), which is used to disclose the eligibility of the bank to receive various payment or non-payment messages.
- Instant payments transactions clear and settle within seconds.
- You can't reverse a transaction or get a returns automatically with Instant Payments. If you need to ask for your money back, you have to ask for a Return of Funds from the bank that you sent the payment to.
- Each network defines any explicit limitations on Instant Payments use cases for that network.
- TCH sets its transaction limit at $1,000,000/transaction. FedNow sets its transaction limit at $500,000/transaction. Cross River may set different limits for different partners. These limits are subject to review.
- For receiving funds, Cross River doesn't set a receive limit that is lower than the maximum receive limit: $1,000,000 for TCH and $500,000 for FedNow.
- We support webhooks and extended data in the transaction so the receiver can see the sending account in the transaction details.
Instant Payments transfer money between banks in real time via an Instant Payments network. A credit transfer is the specific message in the Instant Payments network used to transfer money between banks in real time (also referred to as pacs.008). The debtor is the account owner who sends the credit transfer, and the creditor is the account owner who receives the credit transfer. The debtor FI is the bank that sends the credit transfer, and the creditor FI is the bank that receives the credit transfer. This is the same thing as a push payment. One party (debtor) sends funds to another party (creditor).
Instant Payments networks do not use pull payments. One party cannot debit (take) funds from another party's bank account.
Instant payments transactions and requests are made by messages sent between the debtor, creditor, their respective financial institutions, and the Instant Payments network.
CR now uses two different Instant Payments network platforms: RTP via The Clearing House (TCH) and FedNow. Until recently, only TCH offered instant payments. Now we can also originate Instant Payments through the Federal Reserve's FedNow platform.
You have the option of implicit or explicit network routing of your Instant Payments credit transfer.
CR network interoperability solution delivers the payment to the creditor as efficiently and effectively as possible. When you originate an Instant Payment:
- If both networks are available and online, we use a "network preference." We base this preference on the product configuration, which can either be a CR level network preference or you can choose your own preference, applied across all your users of that product .
- You can also indicate your preference for an individual transaction using the networkPlatform attribute on the API request.
- If only one network can be used, we route the payment through that network.
- If both networks can be used but only one is online, we use that online network.
- If neither network can be used, the payment fails.
To determine if an FI (based on routing numbers) participates in either or both platforms, use the directory endpoint.
When you originate an Instant Payment credit transfer, the response returns one of these values for the networkPlatform attribute.
Network Platform | Description |
|---|---|
TCH | The pacs.008 credit transfer is routed through the RTP via TCH network |
FedNow | The pacs.008 credit transfer is routed through the FedNow network |
Cross River has created a user experience for partners to submit Instant Payments to participating banks when they are unavailable to receive the payment. Instead of the payment being rejected, CR will queue the payment until the receiving institution is online, and then automatically originate the payment. Queuing is available for both RTP via TCH and FedNow.
Cross River offers an API to find out whether a given FI participates in RTP via TCH, FedNow, or both, and what services that FI offers. Use the GET /rtp/v1/directory endpoint. See our tutorial about this endpoint.
Role name | Description |
|---|---|
Debtor (Payer) | The person or company that wishes to send a payment via instant payments |
Debtor (Payer) FI | The financial institution sending the Instant Payments payment. Also known as the sending participant or participating FI |
The Instant Payment system | The network for routing and settling Instant Payments between participating FIs: Either RTP via TCH or FedNow |
Creditor (Payee) FI | The financial institution sending the Instant Payments. Also known as the receiving participant or participating FI |
Creditor (Payee) | The person or company receiving a payment via instant payments |
Requester | The person or company requesting information on a payment made (RFI) or a return of funds sent (RFR) |
The ultimate debtor and creditor roles offer the receiving bank greater clarity about the exact originator or recipient of the funds. These roles are useful whenever there are 2 parties on either the sender side (debtor) or the receiver side (creditor) (or both) because one party is originating or receiving on behalf of the other party. Ultimate debtors and creditors make clear to the receiving bank who the exact originator or recipient of the funds is. This helps ensure accurate and efficient processing of transactions within the financial system.
You're not required to include any address attributes for the ultimate debtor or creditor. However, if you provide any part of the address you must also include all of these address attributes: addressStreetName, addressCity, addressState, addressPostalCode, and addressCountry.
When using either an ultimate debtor or creditor, the corresponding debtor or creditor account must be a business account.
The diagram below provides variable flows of funds with Ultimate Debtors and Creditors.
The second flow shows a practical application of how to use the Ultimate Debtor in Instant Payments API requests:
- The Sender, an end user, initiates the payment or disbursement via the Merchant's application.
- The Merchant, your client, both provides the platform through which the Sender initiates the payment and acts as the Ultimate Debtor.
- You act as the Debtor in this scenario because you are directly affiliated with Cross River, and serve as the client of the bank.
- Cross River, as the Sending Financial Institution (FI), facilitates and oversees the transaction.
- The Receiving FI, as the recipient financial institution, obtains the payment on behalf of the final beneficiary.
- The Receiver, as the end beneficiary or creditor and a client of the Receiving FI, receives the disbursement or payment.
