Faster Payments Council's Non-Value Message Guide: Merchant Takeaways
A new FPC guide on instant payments non-value messages lays groundwork for bills and invoice data on FedNow and RTP. What it covers and what to ask your bank.
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On this page 7 sections
- What the Faster Payments Council Guide Covers
- What Instant Payments' Non-Value Messages Carry, From Requests to Remittance Data
- Why Banks Need Rules for Payment Requests: Spam and Fake Bills
- What Request for Payment on FedNow and RTP Fixes in Invoicing
- Payment Requests vs. Card Billing and ACH for Recurring Charges
- Questions to Ask Your Bank About FedNow and RTP Payment Requests
- Get Your Invoices Ready Before Your Bank Is
Key takeaways
- The FPC guide is a set of best practices for banks. It isn't a network rule or a law, so your bank decides which of these features you get.
- A Request for Payment can't pull money from a customer. The payer still sends the funds, which is why it won't replace card-on-file or ACH debit for recurring billing yet.
- For invoicing businesses, invoice numbers attached to each payment save time every month. The faster settlement is a smaller benefit by comparison.
- Before anything else, ask your bank whether it can send requests, how much remittance detail reaches you and what it charges.
The U.S. Faster Payments Council (FPC) has published Operational Considerations for Non-Value Messages. It's a guide for banks on handling the messages that travel with an instant payment but don't move any money. For merchants, instant payments' non-value messages are what could turn FedNow and RTP from a fast way to get paid into a way to send bills and match each payment to its invoice. The FPC announced the guide on Oct. 23, 2026, and The Paypers covered it on Oct. 27. The guide is written for banks, so nothing changes at your checkout this week. What changes is what you can start asking your bank for.
What the Faster Payments Council Guide Covers
The FPC's Operational Considerations Work Group wrote the guide. Miriam Sheril, head of product for North America at Form3, chairs that group. Dustin Martin, a vice president of electronic payment services at U.S. Bank, is vice chair. According to the FPC's announcement, the guide covers five message types, shown in the table below. It then turns to the workflows behind those messages and the fraud and compliance controls banks need. It also lays out how the RTP Network and the FedNow Service differ in the messages they support and require.
In the release, Martin summed up the purpose: "Having the right information at the right time can be just as important to successfully supporting the payment." PaymentExpert's coverage adds that both networks support a wide range of ISO 20022 non-value messages and run 24/7. That means a bank needs systems and staff ready to respond at any hour. ISO 20022 is the international data standard for payment messages.
This is the latest guide in a series. The first, released Oct. 11, 2023, covered receiving instant payments. At the time, the FPC said later guidelines would cover sending payments and non-value messages. The new release says it builds on the work group's earlier guidance on receiving and sending.
Keep one distinction in mind as you read. The FPC is a membership organization, and its guide is a set of best practices for financial institutions. It is neither a network rule nor a law. The Federal Reserve runs FedNow and The Clearing House runs RTP, and each network sets its own rules. Your bank then decides which features to build on top of them.
What Instant Payments' Non-Value Messages Carry, From Requests to Remittance Data
A payment on FedNow or RTP moves money. Everything around it moves information. Here is how each message type in the guide shows up for a business owner.
| Message type | What it does | Where you'd notice it |
|---|---|---|
| Request for Payment | Asks a payer to send a specific amount | A bill your customer approves in their own banking app |
| Request for Return of Funds | Asks the receiving bank to send money back | A duplicate or misdirected payment you want back, or one you're asked to return |
| Request for Information | Asks for details about a payment | Your bank asking what a payment was for, or you asking the payer's bank |
| Remittance messages | Carry invoice numbers and other payment detail | Payments that arrive already labeled with what they cover |
| Administrative system messages | Pass status and network notices between banks | You rarely see them, but they produce the status updates on a payment |
The key word is request. A Request for Payment can't take money from anyone. The payer still has to approve it and send the funds. A Request for Return of Funds can't take money back either. It only asks, and the receiving side decides. Cards are different: a cardholder can dispute a charge, and the network's chargeback process pulls the money back out of the merchant's account.
Why Banks Need Rules for Payment Requests: Spam and Fake Bills
A payment request appears in the customer's own banking app and looks like a bill from a business they know. Paying it takes seconds. That combination is exactly what fraudsters want. A fake request that copies a real supplier is an invoice scam with a bank's credibility behind it. And because instant payments settle immediately, a customer who pays one has only a return request to fall back on, not a card-style dispute.
That's why the guide gives fraud and risk their own section. The press coverage doesn't say which controls the FPC recommends, but the result for merchants is easy to predict. Any bank that lets businesses send payment requests will vet the senders and watch their volume. Expect a review before you get access, similar to the one banks run before letting a business originate ACH debits. A business with clean invoices and established customers is the easiest to approve.
What Request for Payment on FedNow and RTP Fixes in Invoicing
For B2B sellers, the remittance data matters more than the speed. Anyone who has run accounts receivable knows the problem: money arrives, and nobody knows which invoices it covers.
Illustrative example. Say a wholesale distributor is owed $12,700 by one customer across three invoices. Invoice No. 1041 is for $4,200 and No. 1047 is for $6,000. No. 1052, for $2,500, came due last week. The customer takes a $250 credit memo (CM-88) for damaged goods and sends one payment of $12,450 with the reference "October." That amount matches no single invoice and is less than the full balance. So someone in accounting has to email the customer and wait for a reply before applying the payment by hand.
Now say the distributor had sent a Request for Payment listing each invoice. The payment comes back with remittance lines showing all three invoices paid in full and CM-88 applied for $250. The distributor's bookkeeper posts the $12,450 to the right invoices without a phone call. The money also arrived in seconds, but the time saved on reconciliation is what repeats every month.
The same applies to other businesses that send invoices. A general contractor's request can carry the progress-draw number and the retainage held. An accounting firm's request ties the payment to a client engagement and billing period. None of that helps unless the detail reaches your books. If your bank's statement or export drops the remittance lines, the benefit stops at the bank. For habits that work on any payment method, see 11 invoicing habits that help you get paid faster.
Payment Requests vs. Card Billing and ACH for Recurring Charges
Payment requests won't replace the way most subscriptions and memberships bill today. The reason is who starts each payment.
| Card on file | ACH debit | Instant payment request | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who starts each charge | Merchant, under the customer's authorization | Merchant, under the customer's authorization | Merchant sends a request; payer sends the money |
| What the payer does each time | Nothing after setup | Nothing after setup | Approves it, unless the bank offers standing approval |
| Speed of funds | Your processor's settlement schedule | Same day or later | Seconds, any day |
| Cost | Interchange plus processor fees | Bank pricing | Bank pricing; ask |
| How money comes back | Card network chargebacks | ACH returns | Request for Return of Funds |
Take a gym collecting the same modest dues every month. Card on file and ACH debit charge members automatically. A request needs each member's approval every month, and every approval step is a chance for the payment to be missed. Ask your bank whether it will offer standing approvals for recurring requests. The coverage of the guide doesn't promise them.
Large B2B invoices work out differently, because that's where card fees cost the most in dollars. A request paid by instant transfer carries no interchange, though your bank sets its own fees for sending requests and receiving payments. If you keep taking cards on big invoices in the meantime, Level 2 and Level 3 processing for B2B cards lowers the rate on qualifying commercial cards.
For suppliers being paid by virtual card, see our supplier playbook for accepting B2B virtual cards without giving up margin. Our guide to passing card fees on B2B invoices explains how to recover that cost where it's allowed. For a side-by-side look at the payment networks, read RTP vs. FedNow vs. ACH: which instant payment rail fits.
Questions to Ask Your Bank About FedNow and RTP Payment Requests
Your business bank connects you to FedNow or RTP, not your card processor. Take these questions to your banker or treasury management contact:
- Which network are you connected to, FedNow or RTP, and can you send instant payments as well as receive them?
- Can my business account send Requests for Payment from online banking, or only through an integration?
- When a payment arrives with remittance detail, do I get all of it, in a format my accounting software can import?
- How much do you charge per request sent and per instant payment received?
- Before I can send requests, what review do I have to pass, and are there volume limits?
- If a customer flags one of my requests as suspicious, what happens to my account?
- Who handles a Request for Return of Funds on a payment I received, and how fast do I have to respond, given that these networks run 24/7?
- Can payers give standing approval for recurring requests, or do they have to approve each one?
Write the answers down. They'll tell you whether instant payment requests are a 2027 project or something to check on again later.
Get Your Invoices Ready Before Your Bank Is
The cheapest way to prepare is to clean up your invoice data, and that helps no matter how customers pay. Give every invoice a unique number and put it on every statement and payment link you send. Ask your larger customers to include invoice numbers when they pay. Businesses that already reconcile cleanly will benefit first once detailed remittance data starts arriving with payments.
Keep accepting cards from customers who prefer them. A virtual terminal for card payments without hardware handles invoices paid by phone or email. MannyPay also integrates with QuickBooks for accounting, which suits professional services billing. Request a free quote and a MannyPay specialist will get back to you within one business day.
The question to watch through 2027 is whether banks add Requests for Payment to the everyday business accounts small companies use, with full remittance detail and standing approvals for recurring bills.
Sources
- US Faster Payments Council release guide on navigating non-value messaging for instant payments (FPC press release via Finextra)
- The Paypers: US Faster Payments Council publishes guide on non-value messaging (Oct. 27, 2026)
- PaymentExpert: US looks to improve instant payments with new FPC guide (Oct. 26, 2026)
- Faster Payments Council on X, post of Oct. 23, 2026 announcing the guide
- FPC Leadership page (Operational Considerations Work Group)
- U.S. Faster Payments Council Releases First Operational Considerations for Instant Payments Guideline (Oct. 11, 2023)
This article is for general educational purposes and is not legal, tax or financial advice. Card network rules and state laws change; confirm current requirements for your business.
