The Clearing House Expands Availability of Request for Payment

The Clearing House has expanded the availability of a capability that enables broker dealers, billers and suppliers to request a payment from customers and receive an instant payment in response.

This Request for Payment (RfP) capability on the RTP network is now offered by several of the RTP network’s financial institution participants, The Clearing House said in a Wednesday (Aug. 2) press release.

Consumers and businesses who receive an RfP can review it, decide whether to pay or decline it, and, if paying it, send an RTP payment in response or, with some financial institutions, schedule the payment for a future date, according to the release.

“Request for Payment provides a way for billers to efficiently and securely send bills and invoices to customers through a bank’s digital channel and allows customers to have full control and insight over the payment,” Rusiru Gunasena, senior vice president of RTP product management at The Clearing House, said in the release.

In preparation for this expanded launch of RfP, The Clearing House has worked with RTP participants over the past year to mitigate the risk of potential misuse, according to the release.

Now, at launch, it is limiting the capability to three permitted use cases: consumer bill pay that lets companies request payment for recurring consumer services; B2B payments that let businesses pay suppliers and let payroll providers request funding for payroll; and account to account (A2A) that lets individuals request transfers between bank or brokerage accounts owned by the same person, the release said.

“As market adoption grows and RTP participants, billers and payers gain experience with RfP, the permitted use cases on the RTP network are expected to expand to encompass all types of traditional and digital payment experiences,” The Clearing House said in the release. “Learnings from these early adopters will be critical to that expansion and wide-scale adoption of RfP.”

PYMNTS research has found that the demand for request-to-pay features is robust worldwide, with businesses and consumers alike expressing appreciation for the capabilities and cash flow efficiencies they offer.

The clarity that request-to-pay functions provide has been cited as being beneficial, particularly for digital payments, according to the “Real-Time Payments Tracker,” a PYMNTS and The Clearing House collaboration.