No Summer Holiday for RTP As Volume Increases

Taking time off and getting away may be top-of-mind for many in the summer, but the payments system has little time for that, especially real-time payments networks.

Real-time payments over the RTP network from The Clearing House Payments Co. LLC, increased over both the Memorial Day and July 4 weekends, with Memorial Day volume at 860,268 transactions valued at $2.6 billion, compared with 677,061 transactions at $307.9 million for the 2024 holiday. TCH advises that it raised its transaction limit on Feb. 9 to $10 million from $1 million.

Similarly, July 4 this year, which was on a Friday, generated more than 1 million transactions valued at $4.9 billion, up from 773,171 transactions at $563.1 million in value in 2024. TCH also says the Friday holiday also had a role in that increase over the 2024 Independence Day, which was on a Thursday.

“One thing the real-time payment system has done is it made it possible for businesses to take payments and receive funds on their schedules,” James Colassano, TCH senior vice president of product development and strategy, tells Digital Transactions News.

On Memorial Day, for example, one use case is moving money for cash concentration, Colassano says, for when a company has scheduled that period or at the end of the quarter. Cash concentration is a treasury strategy to move funds from outlying bank accounts a business may hold to a centralized one. “It’s those type of activities, not necessarily payments,” Colassano says.

The July 4 holiday tends to generate a lot of activity, and did so this year, the eighth for the RTP network, he says. Most of it is retail-oriented, though merchant settlement generates a number of real-time payments. Some acquirers have turned to real-time merchant settlement as a differentiator, including, in 2020, EVO Payments, which Global Payments Inc. acquired in 2022, and Helcim Inc. earlier this year.

Colassano says merchants of all sizes are using the RTP network. Many small-business owners are tied up during the day running their businesses, so most do their banking after hours, he says. “They typically value their ability to move money, do payments, after hours,” he says. “We tend to see organizations starting to use the real-time network when they need it.”

As evidenced in the data from Memorial Day and July 4, the move up to a $10 million transaction limit has had an impact. Each limit increase—RTP started with a $25,000 transaction cap—has been vetted for risk and demand, Colassano says. The $10-million limit has been well received, and TCH has seen many companies send multiple $10 million transactions.

TCH is not alone in offering a bank-centered real-time payments network. The Federal Reserve’s FedNow network, which launched in 2023, is still growing, but a recent eMarketer Inc. report found that transaction value on FedNow has ballooned to $245.76 billion in the 2025 second quarter on 2.1 million transactions. FedNow’s transaction limit increased to $1 million earlier this year, up from $500,000. The RTP network launched in 2017.