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Payout Rail Selector

Two questions about the payout, and the routes that may fit, in the order a routing engine would try them.

What did the recipient give you?
When does the money need to land?

Routes that may fit, in order

RTP

Instant when the recipient’s bank participates in the network.

FedNow

The other instant rail; participation differs bank to bank, which is why routing checks both.

ACH

The graceful fallback when neither instant network reaches this bank.

Whether a given payout can actually ride an instant rail depends on the recipient’s bank participating in that network, and card eligibility varies by card and issuer; a payout platform checks both per payment, at send time. The mechanics live in FedNow vs RTP, push-to-card payouts, and ACH vs instant rails.