Tutorial: RTP

RTP Overview

Real Time Payment (RTP) transactions allow the end user to send or receive credits in real time between accounts of US domestic financial institutions. In general, payment solutions can be broken up into two stages, transaction message and transaction settlement. With RTP transfers, the transaction message and settlement are processed together in near real time. RTP uses The Clearing House (TCH) network for transmitting payments.

RTP Processing is Built on the Positive Confirmation Protocol

RTP transactions require the receiving financial institution to confirm the accuracy of the information passed in the transaction message in a matter of seconds. If the receiving financial institution does not verify the accuracy of the information in the RTP transaction message, the transaction will time out and fail, resulting in a rejected payment.

Other domestic payment types operate on a negative confirmation protocol, sometimes referred to as an 'assumed good' model. This means that initiated payments are assumed to be valid unless the receiving financial institution reaches out to the originating institution to address an error in the transaction message. Instead of being instantaneous, the negative confirmation can take days to process end-to-end.

RTP Process

Prerequisite: Check the Directory

Before getting started, you want to make sure that the financial institution you plan to send funds to accepts Real Time Payment transfers.

Returns a list of instant payment-related services that are supported by a particular financial institution. If the bank supports both TCH and FedNow instant payments, the call returns service codes for each network.

Step 1:Create the RTP Request

An instant payment credit transfer sends funds from your account to the recipient account in real time. A credit transfer can be sent from a master account, a deposit account (DDA), or an associated subledger. You will at a minimum need the following attributes:

• Debtor ODFI Account Number
• Transfer Amount
• Creditor RDFI Routing Number
• Creditor Account Number
• Creditor Name

Step 2: Store the Response

Wait for the response message from the RTP request. It will include whether the request was successful or not along with other status codes.

Transaction Status

RTP Return Codes