Commercial Instant Payments and the Need for Speed

Instant payments clear and settle almost immediately, meaning funds are available to the recipient in under 20 seconds, unlike traditional methods that may take several days to clear. For businesses, real-time payments can improve cash flow and reduce the reliance on debt financing. Globally, instant payment adoption proliferates, especially in Brazil, China, and India. With 300 million active users, processing more than 2,300 transactions per second, India’s Unified Payment Interface (UPI) volume accounted for 40% of global instant payments in 2022.

By contrast, some countries with larger gross domestic products, such as Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States, have needed to be faster to embrace instant payments (see Figure 1). In 2022, Germany posted less than 3% of total transaction volume on real-time rails, behind non-real-time digital and paper-based payments.