The payments industry has spent the past decade in pursuit of speed. From domestic instant transfers to cross-border settlement in seconds, velocity has become synonymous with progress. Consumers expect immediacy. Businesses are under pressure to meet that expectation. And financial institutions are investing accordingly.
But speed, in isolation, is not integrity. It is not security. And it is certainly not certain.
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As real-time payments become the norm, one fact remains largely overlooked. The infrastructure supporting these systems was never built for true instant settlement. What appears to be complete is often not final at all—creating a mismatch between expectation and reality at the heart of the payment experience.
The infrastructure gap
A payment that can be reversed was never really a payment—it was a conditional request. Yet many modern systems still rely on legacy constructs that treat “deemed success” as good enough. Funds are debited, goods are dispatched, confirmations are sent. And then, sometimes, the transaction is reversed.
This isn’t just a UX flaw. It is a structural issue, and one with systemic implications.
Instant payments, by definition, demand instant certainty. In a real-time world, finality must be more than a timestamp and a green checkmark. It must be operational, contractual, and irreversible.
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By GlobalDataMany payment networks are still operating with outdated settlement logic—response codes, delayed back-end confirmation, and discretionary reversal policies. These processes were built for batch environments, not for global, real-time commerce. And in the context of instant transfers, they introduce unnecessary friction and unacceptable risk.
The cost of uncertainty
When a transaction is marked “successful” but remains reversible, every participant in the value chain is exposed. Merchants absorb chargebacks on fulfilled orders. Banks struggle with reconciliation and reporting anomalies. Consumers are left questioning whether their money has truly moved. And regulators face the challenge of monitoring systems built on provisional logic.
These issues are amplified in cross-border payments, where regulatory fragmentation adds a further layer of complexity. Some jurisdictions enforce finality at the point of credit. Others permit clawbacks under specific conditions. This inconsistency creates not only operational inefficiencies, but also legal ambiguity—conditions under which trust simply cannot scale.
This is the unfortunate paradox at the heart of real-time payments: the faster we move, the more visible the gaps in our foundations become.
Certainty as innovation
Much of the industry’s focus has been on improving front-end experiences. But the future of payments depends not on what users see but on what they can rely on. And reliability requires infrastructure built for irreversibility.
This is where the next wave of innovation must occur—not in user interfaces or speed-to-complete, but in the underlying mechanics of settlement finality. From cryptographic transaction references to pre-processing risk checks, the emphasis must shift from velocity to veracity.
Leading networks are already moving in this direction. The adoption of ISO 20022 for standardised messaging is an important step, enabling shared understanding of transaction status across borders. Pre-transaction screening—rather than post-settlement reconciliation—is gaining traction as a way to front-load risk management. And initiatives to harmonise finality rules across jurisdictions are beginning to address the regulatory disconnects that plague cross-border flows.
But progress remains uneven, and the consequences of delay are significant.
A system under strain
The move toward real-time payments is not a neutral development. It alters the fundamental risk dynamics of the system. When funds are accessible within seconds, any ambiguity over settlement becomes a vulnerability—not just to individual participants, but to the system as a whole.
As adoption accelerates, payment networks must confront the uncomfortable reality that many of their existing processes are no longer fit for purpose. Finality cannot be assumed. It must be engineered—deliberately, transparently, and universally. This is not a question of preference. It is a question of viability.
Finality as foundation
There is no meaningful speed without certainty. And no trust without finality.
Instant payments may offer the illusion of resolution. But behind the tap, the infrastructure that powers those interactions must be capable of sustaining real-time confidence. Anything less risks undermining the very systems it seeks to modernise.
It is time for the industry to stop treating finality as an operational detail and recognise it for what it truly is: the foundation on which payment trust is built. Only then can real-time payments deliver not just speed, but stability.
Ram Sundaram is co-founder & Chief Operating Officer, TerraPay
