Same Day ACH transaction limit increases to $1m unlocks new payment opportunities

By Edlyn Cardoza

Dwolla, a FinTech powering innovation with sophisticated account-to-account payment solutions, celebrates Nacha’s announcement of the Same Day ACH transaction limit increase from $100,000 to $1 million. Effective March 18, the $1 million limit was applied to all the Same Day ACH transactions. Dwolla expects this update to further support the adoption of Same Day ACH, which saw payment volumes grow by nearly 74% in 2021 following a successful expansion of operating hours.

“We are proud to be a Nacha Preferred Partner for ACH Technology and for having played a role in fueling the growth in ACH and Same Day ACH payments,” said Brady Harris, CEO of Dwolla. “Nacha continues to look for ways to adapt to what a modern business needs, and this is just the latest example. The trifecta of faster payments, higher transaction limits and Dwolla’s technology is hard to beat.”

While not every company will need the $1 million transaction limit, Dwolla acknowledges that the expanded transaction limit will open many possibilities for companies to glean more value from Same Day ACH. In Nacha’s recent update, Q1 numbers signal the anticipated growth we will see this year of Same Day ACH, showing a 53.3% increase in dollar value over a year earlier with a 7.8% volume increase. Key industries poised to benefit from the limit increase include accounting, insurance, construction, real estate, and healthcare.

“The ability for us to process higher transfers via Same Day ACH is a game-changer for the real estate industry and in particular, InvestNext,” said Kevin Heras, InvestNext CEO. “Our customers raise hundreds of millions of dollars from their investors on our real estate investment platform. The ease at which Dwolla has provided us with these enhancements and their scalable infrastructure to handle such large volumes of payments has been extremely reliable for us.”

The recent surge in ACH payment transactions highlighted the demand for the Same Day ACH limit increase. In 2021, ACH payments set records for the number of transactions and the value of those transactions at 29.1 billion transactions valued at $72.6 trillion. The number of ACH payments has skyrocketed since COVID-19, driven by businesses and consumers transitioning to electronic payments.

“Every year, consumers, businesses, non-profit organizations and government entities turn to the ACH Network to make more of their payments,” said Michael Herd, Nacha Senior Vice President, ACH Network Administration. “Last year Same Day ACH payment volume grew nearly 74%, and we expect to see ongoing adoption this year as the Same Day ACH limit increased from $100,000 to $1 million. This exemplifies how the ACH Network is constantly evolving to help meet America’s faster payment needs.”

According to the December 2021 Federal Reserve Payments Study, the ACH Network was the only payment system to grow in share by number annually from 2018 to 2019 and 2019 to 2020. This announcement aligns with the ACH Network’s strong history of innovation. In 2017, Same Day ACH was enabled for debit payments, followed by 2019’s announcement of faster funds availability for Same Day and standard ACH. In March 2020, the Same Day ACH dollar limit per transaction increased from $25,000 to $100,000; in 2021, Nacha extended the time frame for Same Day ACH payment submission.

This announcement follows Dwolla’s recent release of its Virtual Account Number feature. It comes on the heels of a monumental 2021 that included facilitating over $35 billion in payment volume, a $21 million fundraise, and the launch of Real-Time Payments.