Real-time payments explained: SEPA Instant to Pix (2026)

Real-time payment rails move money from one bank account to another in seconds, at any hour on any day, with the receiving bank confirming each payment before it counts as done. Europe's SEPA Instant, the UK's Faster Payments, FedNow and RTP in the US and Brazil's Pix all work this way, and for merchants they offer quick access to funds and an alternative to cards, at the cost of payments that are hard to reverse.

The main rails compared

Sources: operator and central bank pages listed below, all opened on 3 November 2026. Figures carry the period shown. FedNow's launch year is inferred from the Federal Reserve's July 2026 note marking three years of service. The EPC, Pay.UK and The Clearing House all state round-the-clock availability on every day of the year; the FedNow and Pix pages we opened did not state operating hours.

India's Unified Payments Interface, run by the National Payments Corporation of India, would belong in this table. NPCI's pages could not be retrieved on 3 November 2026, so we have left UPI out rather than quote figures we could not check against the operator.

How an instant payment works, step by step

The rails differ in detail, but the flow is broadly the same. Using SEPA Instant as the reference:

1. The payer starts the payment. This happens in a banking app, or on a merchant checkout through a payment initiation provider that sends the instruction to the payer's bank with the payer's consent. Our open banking payments guide covers that consent step.
2. The sending bank checks the request. In the EU this includes Verification of Payee, which checks that the name the payer entered matches the IBAN. The Austrian central bank notes that banks had to offer this from 9 October 2025.
3. The payment message goes to the clearing infrastructure. In the US, RTP messages use the ISO 20022 standard, which carries structured remittance data alongside the amount.
4. The receiving bank decides. It checks that the account exists and can accept the funds, then sends back a positive or negative confirmation.
5. The clock runs throughout. Under the SEPA Instant rulebook the target is ten seconds, with a hard time-out at 20 seconds in exceptional cases. The sending bank cannot reject the payment on its own while it waits for the answer.
6. Funds are credited and settled. The Clearing House describes RTP settlement as instant and final. Brazil's Pix settles through the SPI, a central system run by the central bank, within seconds.
7. The merchant is told. If a PSP sits in the middle, it usually reports the result through a webhook. TrueLayer, for example, fires a notification by default when funds reach the merchant account.

Features beyond the basic transfer

The EU's Instant Payments Regulation, Regulation (EU) 2024/886, drove the SEPA changes. It entered into force in April 2024; euro-area banks had to be able to receive instant payments from 9 January 2025 and to send them, with payee verification, from 9 October 2025. Changes to wider EU payment law are covered in our PSD3 and PSR explainer.

Who provides instant payments to merchants

Merchants rarely connect to these rails directly. Banks are the members; merchants reach the rails through banks, open banking providers or PSPs.

• Open banking providers. Plaid documents its European Payments product as running over UK Faster Payments, SEPA Instant, SEPA credit transfers and local rails, with a single request parameter choosing the scheme, across 18 European countries. TrueLayer offers pay-ins, payouts and refunds across the UK and EU through its Payments API. Our Plaid vs TrueLayer comparison sets them side by side.
• PSPs adding pay by bank. Stripe lists Pay by Bank on its Netherlands pricing page at 0.5% + €0.25, capped at €5, as of 3 November 2026. Mollie, which completed its purchase of GoCardless on 1 September 2026, says the combined group offers pay by bank in 38 countries.
• Cross-border networks. Wise connects directly to several domestic payment systems and added Brazil and Japan in its year to March 2026. It reported that 75% of its payments in January to March 2026 arrived in under 20 seconds.
• Card-based push payments. Not an account-to-account rail, but often compared with one: Visa Direct sends funds to a recipient's account using card credentials, for uses such as marketplace payouts and insurance claims. Our guide to how card payments work explains the card side.

Benefits and trade-offs for merchants

Benefits

• Speed of funds. Money arrives in seconds rather than the next business day, which the Austrian central bank gives as the norm for ordinary SEPA transfers.
• Always on. SEPA Instant, Faster Payments and RTP state that they run every day of the year, including weekends and holidays, which helps businesses that sell or pay out at all hours.
• Higher ceilings. RTP and FedNow both allow up to $10m per payment, and Faster Payments up to £1m, so the rails are not limited to small retail amounts.
• Data for reconciliation. RTP's ISO 20022 messages carry richer payment data, which The Clearing House promotes for real-time reconciliation.

Trade-offs

• Hard to reverse. Instant payments are designed to be final. Refunds are a new outgoing payment, which is why providers such as TrueLayer cap refunds at the amount originally paid and route them through a merchant account.
• Fraud risk moves upstream. Because money leaves at once, checks have to happen before sending. Verification of Payee, FedNow's account pre-check pilot and Pix's MED all respond to this.
• Limits vary in practice. Scheme ceilings are not the same as what a payer's bank allows. Pay.UK notes that individual bank and building society limits differ.
• Checkout experience depends on the payer's bank. In pay by bank flows the shopper approves in their own banking app, so part of the journey sits outside the merchant's control.
• Coverage is national or regional. Each rail serves its own currency area. Cross-border instant payments need a provider that links several of them.

Adoption figures from official sources

The EPC page we opened did not show a current participant figure for SEPA Instant, so the table has no SEPA row.

Frequently asked questions

What are real-time payments?

Real-time payment rails move money from one bank account to another in seconds, at any hour on any day, with the receiving bank confirming each payment before it counts as done. Examples include SEPA Instant in Europe, Faster Payments in the UK, FedNow and RTP in the US, and Pix in Brazil.

How fast is SEPA Instant?

Under the SEPA Instant rulebook the target is ten seconds, with a hard time-out at 20 seconds in exceptional cases. The EPC states that the scheme is available round the clock on every day of the year.

What is the difference between FedNow and RTP?

Both are US instant payment rails with a $10m per-payment ceiling. FedNow is run by the Federal Reserve and handled 6.38m payments worth $370.9bn in Q3 2026, while RTP is run by The Clearing House and handled 150m payments worth $621bn in Q3 2026. FedNow's $10m network limit has applied since November 2025.

Can an instant payment be reversed?

Instant payments are designed to be final, so they are hard to reverse. A refund is a new outgoing payment, which is why providers such as TrueLayer cap refunds at the amount originally paid. Brazil's Pix has a Special Return Mechanism (MED) for returning funds after fraud, in use since 2021.

What is Verification of Payee?

Verification of Payee checks that the name the payer entered matches the IBAN before the payment is sent. Under the EU's Instant Payments Regulation, euro-area banks had to be able to send instant payments, with payee verification, from 9 October 2025.

How can merchants accept instant payments?

Merchants rarely connect to these rails directly, because banks are the members. They reach the rails through banks, open banking providers such as Plaid and TrueLayer, or PSPs adding pay by bank, such as Stripe and Mollie. Our open banking payments guide covers the payer's consent step.

Key terms

• Instant credit transfer: a push payment from payer to payee that completes in seconds, at any time.
• Push payment: the payer's bank sends the money; the payee cannot pull it, unlike a card payment or direct debit.
• Verification of Payee (VoP): a check that the payee's name matches the account number before the payment is sent.
• Payment initiation service: a regulated service that starts a bank payment on the payer's behalf, with their consent.
• ISO 20022: an international messaging standard that carries structured payment and remittance data.
• Settlement finality: the point at which a payment cannot be unwound by the system.
• Variable recurring payments (VRP): a UK open banking mandate that lets a business take a series of payments within limits the payer sets once.

More guides in our open banking hub.

Information only, not financial or investment advice. Scheme rules and limits change; check the operator's own pages for current details.