Instant payments

Never wait for payments again

When business is urgent, money needs to be processed quickly. You can now receive instant payments to your PostFinance account in real time – 24/7, every day of the year. This means money is available more quickly.

Receive instant payments: money in your business account in real time

  • 24 hours a day, seven days a week and 365 days a year

  • Receive money within 10 seconds

  • Amounts immediately available in your business account

  • Liquidity management is improved

  • Faster order fulfilment is possible

  • Payments in real time are already a reality in different forms in many countries. SIX and the Swiss National Bank (SNB) launched a new central payment infrastructure project in November 2023, laying the foundation for real-time payments in Switzerland. According to the SNB, all Swiss financial institutions must accept real-time payments. The SNB also laid out a schedule: from August 2024, the major Swiss banks such as PostFinance must be able to process real-time payments. The other banks will follow by 2026.

    • Instant payments are transfers made in CHF as national payments, processed by banks and PostFinance 24/7, every day and within a few seconds – i.e. in real time. The debit to the paying party’s account is immediate and almost simultaneous with the receipt of the credit in the beneficiary party’s account. PostFinance is also able to credit instant payments to foreign currency accounts.

    • Currently, there is a maximum amount of 20,000 francs for instant payments. Other amount limits may apply, depending on the bank used by the paying party.

    • Instant payments have very demanding requirements with regard to availability and performance. Our systems have been upgraded  to meet these requirements. We are beginning with the receipt of instant payments in order to gain experience with our new real-time systems before we introduce the “Send” option.

    • We will phase in the option to send instant payments from autumn 2024.

      • PostFinance always books incoming instant payments individually to the account – regardless of any batch entry settings
      • Notification is provided in the account statement (in all formats) and – if available – in the camt.054 detailed notification (QR-bill virtual account or IBAN). However, notification of payment details is only ever sent once
      • For instant payments, there are separate Bank Transaction Codes (BTC)
      • Instant payments that are transferred to foreign currency accounts are converted at the current rates

    • Conventional transfers generally take one business day and are restricted to fixed processing times. Instant payments are transferred from one account to another within seconds, 24/7.

Would you like more information about instant payments?

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