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Many of those U.S. payments likely involved RTP. Although TCH does not Zelle, Venmo, Dwolla, others
publish network data, RTP "moves millions of transactions a month" and "several make real-time plays
billion dollars a month in value," Ledford said. Those numbers are growing at
rates around 10 percent per year, and described merchant account funding as "a In February 2021, RTP integrated
fairly decent share of our overall volume," he added. with Zelle, the P2P network operated
by Early Warning Services, a fintech
Jack Baldwin, chairman of BHMI, which develops software solutions for back- owned by many of the same banks
office electronic payments processing, said the card brands should be concerned that own TCH. Bank of America
about the growth of real-time payments. "Things like Zelle and RTP will drain and PNC Bank are the first to offer
transactions off their networks," he said. "Merchants can use these to bypass the instant Zelle payments using RTP,
networks and deny them interchange revenue." but the integration can easily be
leveraged to support other financial
institutions (FIs) that want to offer
Zelle customers a true instant
payment experience, Ledford said.

Eventually, businesses will be
able to use Zelle and RTP to send
bills electronically and request
payment, with only a customer's
mobile number or email address.
"Combining the speed of Zelle
and the RTP network will create
new powerful opportunities for
companies to seamlessly and
efficiently interact with consumers
and small businesses," said Chris
Ward, executive vice president and
head of product and operations at
PNC Treasury Management.

RTP currently counts 20 FIs with
direct links into RTP; about 100
connect through third-party
processors. The thousands of other
FIs in the United States all will
eventually be able to link to RTP
through third-party processors, a
spokesman noted.
RTP also is being used by Venmo
to support instant payments, as
well as Dwolla and other payments
disruptors. Some companies are
using the network to support instant
payroll; others use it for insurance
payouts, Ledford noted. Many
companies also use other faster
payments options, like same-day
ACH and push payments to debit
cards, depending on situational
needs, he added.

Additionally, RTP is used to
support B2B factoring applications,
Ledford stated, adding that TCH
is continually working to build out
additional RTP use cases. "Folks are
getting really creative with the use
cases they bring us," he said.

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