Legacy Systems Block Corporate Access to Real-Time Payment Rails

The Clearing House has spent eight years promoting instant payment infrastructure, and businesses now understand what the technology can do. The next challenge is making it accessible where financial decisions actually happen.

"We are successful in awareness," Cheryl Gurz, vice president of Real Time Payments Product Management at The Clearing House, told PYMNTS. "Transitioning into the next state is about integration."

Companies recognise instant payment capabilities but cannot reach them from inside the software, treasury systems and back-office workflows they use daily. The shift moves real-time payment rails from banking infrastructure into contested territory where banks, FinTechs, enterprise software providers and treasury platforms compete to control corporate financial workflows.

Connecting payment rails to treasury and accounting systems creates a foundation for broader finance automation. Once the integration work is complete, organisations can add intelligent workflows, artificial intelligence and sophisticated decision logic on top.

Once the integration work is done and you've put in the effort, that's just the foundation. You're now going to be adding workflow automation. You're going to be adding AI onto it, agentic AI. You're going to be automating routine tasks.

This could reshape corporate treasury functions. Finance employees would spend less time initiating transactions, reconciling activity and handling repetitive exceptions, freeing them to focus on liquidity strategy, supplier relationships and balance sheet optimisation.

The 24/7 availability of instant payments unlocks opportunities impossible with conventional banking hours. A company facing an invoice discount deadline on Sunday can now hold cash until the precise moment payment is due, rather than paying early or missing the discount window.

"You now have the ability to manage precision payments so that you're paying on Saturdays and Sunday," Gurz said. "This is a valuable new way of doing business once you get an understanding and your integration efforts complete."

Payment speed is becoming an expected capability rather than a competitive differentiator. The strategic advantage now lies in how organisations use that speed to generate economic benefits or improve customer experience.

"The competitive advantage isn't speed anymore," Gurz said. "It's how the end users can use that speed to get economic or customer experience benefits."

An instant payment offered through an isolated banking portal provides emergency utility but does not fundamentally change operations. Embedding instant payments directly into accounts payable platforms, ERP systems or treasury workstations can transform how a business manages liquidity, releases inventory, pays suppliers and handles exceptions.

Banks must provide APIs and digital channels that let companies initiate and receive instant payments without leaving existing workflows. ERP providers and treasury management platforms face decisions about building real-time capabilities before customers treat them as standard functionality.

"End users are expecting their providers to have it done," Gurz said. "And if they don't have it done, some will wait and work with them. Others will go find another provider."

Adoption often begins with a specific operational problem rather than a grand strategy. Gurz recalled a middle-market business placed on credit hold while waiting for construction materials. The company discovered instant payments in its bank portal, paid the supplier immediately and released the goods. That experience shifted the user's perception entirely — they wanted to use the rail for everything.

Many organisations still rely on decades-old payment systems written in programming languages that few current employees fully understand. Fear of disrupting these systems has created institutional inertia.

The arrival of a new rail gives businesses reason to reconsider the entire architecture rather than adding another payment option to an aging stack. Companies are beginning to view payments as a strategic driver of value that can lead to real-time treasury, better working capital management and more efficient use of funds.

The industry spent eight years teaching businesses that money could move faster. The next challenge is helping them rebuild operations around what becomes possible when it does.