If you’ve ever sold a car privately, you know the worst part isn’t the negotiation. It’s standing in your driveway watching a buyer hand you a personal check, knowing it’ll take three to five business days to clear, and wondering whether to release the title now or hold it. The US has been stuck with this anxious moment for decades. That’s about to change.
Two new payment networks — RTP and FedNow — are quietly transforming how money moves between American bank accounts. They’ll do for high-value peer-to-peer transactions what Venmo did for splitting a dinner bill: make it instant, irreversible, and obvious.
What RTP and FedNow actually are
RTP (Real-Time Payments) is a payment network operated by The Clearing House, a private consortium of large US banks. It launched in 2017. RTP moves money between bank accounts in seconds, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, including holidays. Once a payment is initiated, it’s final — the sender’s bank cannot reverse it the way they can reverse an ACH transaction.
FedNow is the Federal Reserve’s equivalent, launched in 2023. It works essentially the same way as RTP but is operated by the central bank and is open to any US bank or credit union that wants to participate — not just members of The Clearing House.
Functionally, RTP and FedNow do the same thing: instant, final, 24/7 movement of money between US bank accounts. The split between them is partly historical and partly competitive. As an end user, you don’t pick one over the other — your bank routes the payment through whichever network supports the recipient.
Why this matters for car sales
ACH, the dominant bank-to-bank rail in the US, was designed in the 1970s for payroll and bill payment. It clears in batches over one to three business days. It can be reversed for unauthorized debits up to 60 days after the transaction. For payroll, that’s fine. For paying $20,000 to a stranger for their car, it’s a nightmare.
Credit cards solved part of this for online merchants — instant authorization, deep fraud protection, $0 buyer liability — but they cost 2–3.5% in network fees and cap out at much lower transaction sizes than typical car prices. Cashier’s checks are verifiable but require both parties to schedule a bank visit and can still be forged. Wire transfers work for high amounts but cost $25–50 per send and require both parties to share account numbers.
RTP and FedNow are the first payment rail in US history that actually fits peer-to-peer high-value transactions: instant authorization, irreversible, low fee (cents to dollars, not percentages), supports up to $1M per transaction.
The catch: not every bank supports it yet
As of 2026, roughly 1,200 US banks and credit unions support sending and receiving on RTP and/or FedNow. That sounds like a lot, but there are about 9,000 financial institutions in the US. Most of the largest banks have integrated — Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Citi, Capital One, US Bank, PNC, and many regionals — but plenty of smaller banks and credit unions haven’t yet.
For a peer-to-peer marketplace, that means we can’t turn RTP on as an option until enough of our buyers’ and sellers’ banks support receiving real-time payments. Offering RTP only to find that the seller’s small-town credit union can’t accept it would be a worse experience than just sticking with ACH.
By early 2026, support is broad enough that we expect to enable RTP and FedNow as a Zoooom payment option later this year. Until then, credit card is the launch rail and ACH will follow once we’ve solved our internal float infrastructure.
What changes when Zoooom turns on real-time payments
Three things get noticeably better for users:
- No more “Saturday handoff” problem. Today, if you complete a handoff on Saturday afternoon, ACH settlement waits until Monday. With RTP/FedNow, the seller sees funds in seconds, weekend or not.
- No surcharge. Real-time payments cost cents per transaction, not percentages of the amount. Unlike credit card’s 3% surcharge, RTP and FedNow will be free to buyers on Zoooom.
- Higher transaction limits. RTP supports up to $1M per transaction. Practically, this means even high-value purchases — classic cars, modified builds, exotic collectibles — can clear in one shot instead of needing wire transfers or multiple smaller transactions.
The bigger picture
For decades, the United States has lagged the rest of the developed world on consumer payments. The UK has had Faster Payments since 2008. India’s UPI processes billions of transactions per month. Mexico’s SPEI is instant and free. The US, despite running the global reserve currency, has been stuck with 1970s-era ACH for everyday bank-to-bank payments.
RTP and FedNow finally bring the US in line. The transition will take years — not every bank will integrate quickly, and most users won’t notice until their bank quietly switches them over — but the destination is clear. Within five years, instant bank-to-bank payments will be the default expectation, and three-day ACH transfers will feel as antiquated as paper checks do today.
For Zoooom, this is the foundational rail we’ve been waiting for. A car is the second-largest purchase most Americans make. It deserves a payment system that doesn’t make either party hold their breath for three days.
For details on what’s available today (credit card, with ACH and RTP/FedNow on the roadmap), see our Payments guide.