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A realtime payment (rt_*) pushes money from a Wallet to an External party account over the realtime network (RTP or FedNow). Realtime payments are credit only and typically settle in seconds. Create one with an integer amount in the minor units of the currency, the destination account, and a description that is delivered to the recipient bank:
The description is required, 1 to 140 characters from the ISO 20022 character set (letters, digits, spaces, and / - ? : ( ) . , ' +).

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Lifecycle

A payment starts CREATED and moves to PROCESSING once submitted to the network. It ends SETTLED, FAILED, or CANCELED — you can cancel it before submission. A payment that needs approval passes through AWAITING_APPROVAL and ends APPROVAL_DENIED when denied. The realtime.* webhook events fire as the payment progresses. There is no return state. A network rejection is terminal and usually arrives within seconds: the payment ends FAILED with the network code on its failure field. A settled payment is irrevocable. Natural does not resubmit a failed realtime payment over ACH — to pay a destination that cannot receive realtime credits, create an ACH payment instead.

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Reachability

Not every bank account can receive realtime credits. The supportedRails field on an External party account reports the rails the account is known to reach. The field is advisory at read time; reachability is enforced when you create the payment.

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Sandbox

In Sandbox, drive a payment to a terminal state with the settle and fail simulations.