Instant payments

Where’s my money? It’s already there!

No more waiting for your money: you can now receive instant payments to your PostFinance account. The benefit for you: money is credited to you in real time, and you can use it immediately.

Receive instant payments: money in your account within seconds

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

  • Receive money within 10 seconds

  • Amounts available immediately in your private account

  • Notifications of instant payments available via push message

  • 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.

    • 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.

    • 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.

    • 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.

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