What Is Real-Time Clearing (RTC)?

Real-Time Clearing (RTC) is South Africa's original fast payment rail. Where an ordinary EFT credit can take one to two banking days to reflect at another bank, an RTC payment clears between participating banks in about 60 seconds. Banks usually present it to customers as an "immediate payment", "instant payment" or "pay and clear now" option.

RTC has been the go-to option for urgent interbank payments for years, and it remains widely used even though PayShap now offers instant payments for lower values around the clock.

How does RTC work?

RTC follows the same logical steps as any bank transfer — capture, validation, clearing, settlement and crediting — but the clearing leg happens as a single real-time message rather than a batch:

1. The payer selects the immediate payment option and captures the beneficiary's details.
2. The payer's bank validates the payment and debits the payer's account.
3. The payment is cleared to the beneficiary's bank in real time through BankservAfrica.
4. The beneficiary's bank confirms acceptance and credits the beneficiary within about 60 seconds.

Because the receiving bank confirms the payment before it completes, the payer gets near-immediate certainty that the money has been delivered. Compare this to the batch process described in the bank transfer lifecycle.

How much does RTC cost, and what are the limits?

RTC is priced at a premium compared with batch EFT. Each bank sets its own fee, and the difference can be significant — instant payments cost the banks more to process, and pricing reflects that.

Limits are also set by each bank:

• Banks apply their own per-transaction limits for RTC payments.
• Your profile's daily payment limits still apply on top of any RTC-specific limit.
• Limits differ between personal and business banking and between channels.

Because fees and limits are bank-dependent and change over time, confirm the current figures with your own bank before relying on RTC for a specific payment.

Can an RTC payment be reversed?

No. RTC payments are final and irrevocable once processed. The receiving bank credits the beneficiary immediately, so there is no settlement delay during which the payment could be recalled.

This makes RTC excellent for legitimate urgent payments and equally attractive to fraudsters. Before making a large immediate payment:

• Verify the beneficiary's account details independently, not from an emailed invoice alone.
• Consider account verification to confirm the account belongs to the person or business you intend to pay.
• Understand the implications of final and irrevocable payments before you press pay.

When should you use RTC instead of EFT or PayShap?

Use RTC when:

• The payment must reflect at another bank within a minute or two.
• The amount exceeds PayShap's bank-dependent low-value limits.
• The beneficiary will only act — releasing goods, a vehicle or documents — once funds have cleared.

Use ordinary EFT when cost matters more than speed, and PayShap for low-value instant payments, especially outside banking hours. The full comparison is in EFT vs RTC vs PayShap vs RTGS.

Tips

• Double-check the account number before confirming — there is no undo on RTC.
• Check your bank's RTC operating hours; some banks restrict immediate payments late at night or apply different rules after hours.
• Do not pay a fee premium unnecessarily: if the beneficiary only needs funds tomorrow, a normal EFT before cut-off is usually enough.

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