In these times of rapid advancement of new technologies, agility in operations has ceased to be a choice and has become an imperative for companies. After all, being quick and efficient in business can make a difference when creating a product or service, serving a customer, or managing your own cash flow. It is at this point that instant payment systems—such as the Brazilian Pix—have much to offer to companies, transforming what was a slow and costly process into something immediate and inexpensive.
And this evolution is just the beginning. It is certain that in the coming years, instant payments will become the norm, likely incorporating technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT). Allowing transactions with different currencies and creating solutions that cross borders, these enhanced payments with technological tools will offer – both for payers and payees – more convenience and efficiency. They are agile, secure, and permanent operations: available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Various industries are impacted by instant payments: retail (physical and online), financial services, supply chain and logistics, public services, gaming and betting industry, to name a few. Digital betting platforms, for example, increased the number of users, the total amount processed, and revenues after adopting instant payment services.
Technically, instant payments (also called immediate payments or real-time payments) are fund transfers that leave one account and reach another within ten seconds after the transaction is processed. This is regardless of whether the transfer is from a legal entity account to an individual account (B2C), from a legal entity account to another legal entity account (B2B), from an individual account to another individual account (C2C), or between accounts (A2A). Before that, bank transfers usually took at least one business day to process. The such speed of instant payments comes from the fact that these transactions are processed without intermediaries, such as clearinghouses or correspondent banks.
Apart from the issue of agility, instant payments also have the advantage of cost reduction. In this new system, there are no transaction fees or other costs associated with traditional payments, such as check processing fees and interbank transfer fees. Furthermore, real-time payments have a positive impact on cash flow management. This is because, since transactions are completed instantly, the risk of a payment failing due to insufficient funds is avoided.
Instant payments are currently developing at full speed in various markets around the world, already establishing themselves as the most advanced in the payment industry. It is common for each country to create resource transfer models tailored to its own reality, entrusting the operation of the system to central banks or private entities. Examples already in operation and projects are plentiful, and experience shows users' enthusiasm for adoption – just look at the numbers ofsuccessof Pix in Brazil.
In the United States, there is FedNow, launched in 2023 and, as the name suggests, operated by the country's Central Bank. In Canada, the Real-Time Rail (RTR) is scheduled for launch in 2026, while in the eurozone, the SEPA Instant Credit Transfer has been operating since 2017. Other experiences include Faster Payments, launched in 2018 in the United Kingdom; the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), in operation since 2016 in India and one of the most successful and popular examples of instant payments; the Faster Payment System (FPS), launched in 2018 in Hong Kong; the New Payments Platform (NPP), operating in Australia for six years; and FAST (Fast and Secure Transfers), from Singapore, one of the first instant payment methods, launched in 2014.
It's a one-way street. The coming years will certainly witness the consolidation of this payment method around the world, and companies that do not want to fall behind definitely need to keep up with this evolution. There is still a lot, a lot to progress.
