Booming Same-Day ACH Volume Is Up 22%

Volume for automated clearing house transactions cleared and settled on the same day they’re initiated increased 22.3% in 2023, signaling the embrace of same-day ACH by the payments industry, Nacha says. Same-day processing was launched nearly eight years ago.

Nacha, a rulemaker for the ACH network, says overall ACH volume landed at $80.1 trillion on 32.5 billion payments in 2023. This is the 11^th consecutive year that the value of ACH transactions increased by more than $1 trillion, Nacha says. The ACH network averages more than 126 million payments each day, the Herndon, Va.-based organization says. In 2023, the total volume of ACH payments averaged to approximately 94 payments per American.

Business-to-business ACH payments were a strong contributor to the results, with 6.6 billion payments, a 10.8% increase over 2022, Nacha says, noting check use among businesses continues to decrease. Indeed, the latest Federal Reserve Triennial Payments Study released in 2023 showed the number of checks written fell by 3.5 billion from 2018 to 2021.

Diving deeper into same-day ACH, the 22.3% increase—to 853.4 million transactions—was accompanied by a 41.2% increase in value, to $2.4 trillion. Since its 2016 launch, same-day ACH volume has surpassed 3 billion payments valued at $6 trillion. Same-day ACH, which comes under the faster-payments umbrella, vies for traction along with real-time payment programs from The Clearing House Payments Co. LLC’s RTP network and FedNow from the Federal Reserve.

Consumer-initiated payments increased 5.7% to 9.9 billion in 2023 over 2022, primarily for bill payment and account transfers. ACH stalwart direct deposit experienced a 3.3% increase in volume on 8.3 billion payments to consumers. Internet ACH volume was up 5.7% to 9.9 billion payments, while peer-to-peer ACH payments totaled 330 million, up 11.9%. Healthcare ACH volume, at 488 million transactions, increased 7.7%.

In the fourth quarter, 8.1 billion ACH payments were made with a value of $20.5 trillion, increases of 5.8% and 5.6%, respectively. Same-day ACH volume in the quarter totaled 255.8 million on $662 billion in value, up 41% and 31.5%, respectively.

“I often say that the modern ACH Network is thriving; the 2023 figures reinforce that,” Jane Larimer, Nacha president and chief executive, says in a statement. “In 2024, the ACH Network’s focus will include ways to continue growing [same-day ACH].”