Higher limits drive new use cases for instant corporate transfers
When The Clearing House raised the cap on real-time payments (RTP) in the US from $1 million to $10 million in April 2025, the move was expected to drive change. Within weeks, Bank of America (BoA) clients began using the higher threshold for a broader set of corporate transactions.
Now, data released by BoA shows that its clients have embraced the new limit. In the first six weeks, the bank saw a 32% rise in transaction volume on the RTP network. Payments above $1 million now account for more than half of the total value processed through the system.
According to AJ McCray, head of global payments products at Bank of America, many clients were already using RTP to pay vendors, employees and customers. But the increased limit has enabled “real estate and deal closings and other corporate activity,” he said in a video statement shared by the bank.
This shift in behaviour highlights the growing comfort with using real-time infrastructure for high-value business-to-business (B2B) transfers. Real estate firms, legal practices, and large suppliers stand to benefit from near-instant settlement that avoids the delays of traditional clearing systems.
Jay Davenport, co-head of global corporate sales, noted that RTP supports key client priorities: “convenience, transparency and resiliency.” These are especially important for treasury teams managing liquidity across multiple jurisdictions.
A wider trend in digital payments adoption
BoA is among the first large financial institutions to implement the higher cap for its corporate customers. As one of the owners of The Clearing House, the bank was closely involved in developing the RTP network alongside peer institutions and the Federal Reserve.
The RTP system operates 24 hours a day, every day of the year, including weekends and holidays. It uses the ISO 20022 messaging standard, which allows senders to include detailed remittance information with each payment. This supports better reconciliation and reporting for corporate users.
The growth in RTP volume is also a sign of broader adoption of real-time infrastructure across the U.S. market. With FedNow, a separate real-time payment system launched by the Fed, also in early stages of rollout, the US is catching up with markets like the UK, Singapore and Australia where real-time payments have been widely adopted.
Implications for the future of business payments
The increase in high-value real-time payments suggests that businesses are starting to rethink how and when they move money. From a working capital perspective, being able to send or receive large sums in seconds can improve cash forecasting and reduce reliance on manual processes.
According to BoA, its corporate clients can also access a broader range of services beyond RTP. These include wire transfers, ACH, commercial card products, and proprietary tools such as Recipient Select and Digital Disbursements.
With more than 94% of the Fortune 500 and 73% of the Global Fortune 500 as clients, BoA is well positioned to observe and influence these changes. The bank’s adoption of the new limit may set a benchmark for others in the industry.
