LAS VEGAS — The Clearing House’s daily payment value has doubled since the payment network increased its payment limit from $1 million to $10 million on its real-time payment rail on Feb. 10.

“In the six weeks since we’ve done it … it’s had a huge impact value-wise,” The Clearing House (TCH) Chief Executive David Watson told Bank Automation News at Fintech Meetup on March 11.

“Our average right now for March is about $2.5 billion per day, compared to $1 billion earlier.”

— David Watson, CEO, The Clearing House

What’s more, TCH has seen payment value exceed $4 billion on several days since increasing the payment limit, Watson said. The average payment size has increased to $1,200 from $800, he added.

TCH competitor FedNow’s daily payment value settled was $219 million with average value per payment at $22,050 at the end of the fourth quarter, according to Federal Reserve’s database.

Making RTP cheaper, accessible

TCH’s real-time payments (RTP) network is growing at a 40% annual rate in payment value and volume growth, Watson said. Once the network reaches a certain volume growth, TCH plans to decrease transaction fees to increase adoption.

“We currently charge 4.5 cents on each transaction,” Watson said. “I hope to bring it down to 0.5 cents on each transaction [at par] with ACH transfers.”

FedNow also charges 4.5 cents per transaction, according to the Fed website.

RTP currently can reach 71% of all U.S. bank accounts compared to 37% for FedNow, Watson said, adding that as transaction fees shrink, adoption of the payment rail will increase.

While the Federal Reserve has not disclosed the precise percentage of bank accounts connected to the FedNow network, the network had onboarded more than 1,200 financial institutions as of Jan. 30.