On Friday 13 February 2026, The Clearing House's RTP network processed 2.05 million payments, the first time it has passed two million in a single day. The previous record, 1.91 million, had been set only a week earlier. On 18 February the network also set a single-day value record of $8.36 billion[1].
RTP carries 98% of US bank-to-bank instant payment volume, has more than 1,100 participating institutions and allows payments of up to $10 million each.
Who is driving the growth
The Clearing House attributes the records to cash-flow needs: transfers from digital wallets to checking accounts, earned wage access disbursements, account-to-account transfers and gig economy payouts. Its product head, Jim Colassano, said consumers are using instant payments "as a critical way to manage their budget in real time".
What most commentary misses
For years, the US instant payments story was told as a business story: supplier payments, insurance claims, treasury use. Those use cases exist, and they explain the value records. But the volume records are being set by consumers who move small amounts, often, at the moment they need the money.
Two consequences follow. First, a lot of this volume starts outside banks, in wallets, payroll apps and wage-access providers that use the network as a rail. The customer experience, and much of the relationship, sits with them. Second, money leaves deposit accounts faster and at any hour. For smaller banks with concentrated deposit bases, weekend and overnight outflows are now a normal operating pattern, not a stress scenario.
What to do
Banks should look at their own instant payment flows by counterparty: how much goes to wallets, wage-access providers and brokerage accounts, and at what times. That tells you where your customers are getting immediacy elsewhere. Then decide whether to offer it yourself, such as instant access to pay or instant transfers inside your own app, or to price and manage the liquidity of being someone else's rail.