Dwolla released the new Real-Time Payments product on Tuesday, allowing Dwolla clients to send money directly to a bank account using the RTP Network established by the Automated Clearing House, an association owned by 24 of the world’s largest banks. The platform was launched in partnership with Cross River Bank, one of the first community banks to join the Clearing House’s RTP Network.
Through Real-Time Payments integration, Dwolla clients can connect with Real-Time Payments-enabled financial institutions to transfer funds within seconds to bank accounts 24 hours a day; the platform is designed to avoid “in-transit” payment delays. The company now offers three main payment modalities to vendors and customers: ACH, Push-to-Debit and Real-Time Payments.
“Most major financial institutions are forecasting that real-time payments, or an instant payment modality, is going to become the primary payment modality over the next five years, globally,” said CEO Brady Harris. “Dwolla is one of the very first financial institutions or fintechs that has a scalable API where businesses can integrate with an RTP modality, a single line of code.” An API is an application programming interface.
Real-time payment solutions have already been available globally, particularly in Europe and China. The Automated Clearing House introduced the format to U.S. banks in 2017, but Dwolla’s Real-Time Payments product directly integrates the process for businesses rather than financial institutions.
“We take on the complexity of integrating with each of those banks so that our customers can get RTP offered within days of us giving them the changes they need to make on their side,” said Adam Steenhard, senior director of corporate strategy. “Our clients have one relationship with us, but it really unlocks the power of several banking partners behind the scenes, one of those being RTP-enabled, another one being Push-to-Debit enabled, and then ACH and all of those services that we’ve provided for years.”
Dwolla is offering the Real-Time Payments platform as a white-label product to other fintech companies in the U.S. market. Initially approached in late 2020 by an unnamed “global fintech” client, Dwolla designed and piloted Real-Time Payments in less than 90 days with the basic infrastructure underlying its previous payment modalities. Following this week’s launch to other clients, Dwolla aims to host more than $1 billion in transaction volume across the Real-Time Payments platform in 2021.
Dwolla is continuing development on “drop-in components,” or low-code solutions that allow small businesses to get started on Dwolla platforms, Steenhard added.
“That’s a theme we’ve taken from a business standpoint. We want to offer you the bleeding-edge tech offerings, but we always want to do that in a way that folks can simply get started, and get started quickly,” he said.