Cross River and paymints.io Launch RTP Offering for Real Estate

Cross River Bank and paymints.io have teamed to expand real-time payments in real estate.

The collaboration — an extension of an existing partnership between the companies — lets paymints.io customers in the real estate space make real-time payments using The Clearing House’s RTP network, the two firms announced Tuesday (Oct. 3).

“This expansion will enable businesses and consumers real-time access to funds, a critical factor when transferring money for high dollar-value transactions,” the companies said in a news release provided to PYMNTS.

The release notes that traditional real estate transactions “are often hindered by slow and cumbersome payment processes, creating friction in an already challenging macroeconomic and real estate environment.”

In May, Cross River and paymints.io joined forces to offer real estate companies transactions with ACH (including same day) as well as domestic wire capabilities.

“Now, the companies will further streamline financial transactions by helping to eliminate the inefficiencies of paper checks, reduce settlement times, mitigate instances of wire fraud, and provide real estate professionals, buyers and sellers with immediate access to funds,” the release said.

The companies say the new offering will allow prospective home buyers to deposit money directly from their checking account when making an offer on a home, while letting escrow holders and settlement agents disburse funds to clients and vendors safely and in real-time, without needing to share routing and account numbers.

The partnership comes at a time when real-time payments remain a rarity in the real estate sector, though that could soon change.

“While just 1% of real estate firms currently use real-time payments, 90% plan to adopt real-time payment solutions to receive payments and 77% plan to adopt these solutions for making payments in the next year,” PYMNTS wrote in April.

Research by PYMNTS Intelligence and The Clearing House has found that real estate companies face a number of obstacles to implementation. For 51%, it was the cost of sending payments, while 62% cited the difficulty of replacing or upgrading legacy IT systems.

Transaction speed is one of the chief reasons real estate firms point to when asked about their interest in faster payment methods. And while methods like cryptocurrency (mentioned by 60% of firms) and virtual cards (52%) are popular, 81% mentioned said transaction speed is a reason to make real-time payments.