The extended multi-year partnership prolongs Mastercard’s role as the exclusive instant payments software provider for TCH’s RTP network, enabling partners to integrate new instant payment use cases.

Mastercard announced it continues the ongoing partnership with The Clearing House (TCH) to further drive real-time payments (RTP) adoption on the TCH’s RTP network.

The RTP network launched in 2017, being designed and powered by Mastercard. Up to date, Mastercard remains the network’s exclusive instant payments software provider.

One of the rare examples of instant payment services in the U.S., RTP provides instant access to payments for customers, enables faster wage disbursements, improves liquidity management, and helps businesses optimise capital workflows. The system also offers a few benefits for the government, boosting local economies through fast disbursement and settlement.?

At the same time, there is much room for development here. The US ranks 33 in the global rating of real-time payment transactions per month. In 2022, instant payments made up only around 1% of overall payments in the country.

Therefore, Mastercard and The Clearing House are determined to continue their ongoing mutual support, investments, and development of real-time account-to-account technologies that enable the transmission of rich payment and non-payment data both in the U.S. for the RTP network and around the globe.

“The Clearing House and Mastercard designed and delivered the RTP network, the premier instant payment platform in the United States, and have a strong history of working together to deliver innovative, scalable, and secure products. The expanded partnership will help both companies design the next generation of instant payment capabilities for financial institutions and their customers.”

Lee Alexander, EVP and Chief Information Officer, The Clearing House

Financial institutions willing to embrace the system can integrate into the RTP network directly, through third-party service providers, bankers’ banks and corporate credit unions.

Judging on the payment tendencies, McKinsey has recently suggested that instant payments and digital wallets will largely drive cash displacement in certain geographies. The analytics firm expects that instant transactions’ share will reach roughly half of overall payments globally by 2027 and nearly triple compared to 2022. Cash-heavy developing economies are expected to make the most significant shifts toward instant payments by 2027.