Data · Open banking coverage register
Open banking coverage: account-to-account payment schemes by country
Pay by bank, account-to-account and A2A all name the same thing: money moving bank to bank, with no card in the middle. Open banking is the layer above it, the consent and API rules that let a third party read an account or start a payment. Boldrails maintains this register because both change at every border. It covers 11 schemes across 10 markets, sourced to regulators and scheme operators.
- 11 schemes documented
- 10 markets
- 7 columns per row
- Regulator and operator kept apart
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Last updated: 6 August 2026
What this register covers
This register documents domestic account-to-account payment schemes and open-banking access regimes, country by country. Each row records the scheme, the direction of money it moves, the currency, the settlement window, what happens when a payment needs reversing, and which body regulates or operates it.
Availability
Which countries have open banking?
Any country count depends on what you are counting. Open banking regimes and real-time payment rails are different sets, and most published maps merge them into one number.
Volt put A2A payments in over 80 countries in its market map, last updated January 2025. Mastercard says open banking reaches more than 70 countries. Both figures belong to their owners, both carry their owners dates, and neither counts the same thing. Both figures are their owners' figures, and neither counts the same thing.
The set that matters to a merchant is narrower. It is the countries where a domestic account-to-account rail exists, has a named operator, and moves money in both directions. Which countries have real-time payments? The euro area runs SEPA Instant Credit Transfer. The UK runs Faster Payments. The United States runs two, RTP and FedNow. Brazil runs Pix, India runs UPI, Australia runs the NPP, Canada runs Interac e-Transfer, the Philippines runs InstaPay and PESONet, and Vietnam runs NAPAS.
Having a rail is not the same as having an open-banking access regime, and several of those markets have one without the other. The table below keeps them apart.
For the rails we run and how we collect on them, see our payments platform.
The register
Account-to-account payment schemes by country
Eleven schemes, ten markets, seven columns. Every cell traces to a regulator, a central bank or the scheme operator's own published rules. Where a primary source was unreachable, the cell says what is confirmed and stops there.
Two columns are worth reading before the rest. Direction records whether the scheme moves money in, out, or both, because a rail that only collects is a different product from one that also disburses. Refund mechanics records what happens when a payment goes wrong, and it is the column that varies most.
Nigeria's row is the outlier. The Central Bank of Nigeria issued a Regulatory Framework in 2021 and Operational Guidelines in March 2023, but the framework is not in nationwide production. Sources spanning October 2025 to June 2026 agree on that, and none of them names a completed go-live date. The row says so rather than filling the cells.
Two rows sit under the United States because RTP and FedNow are separate networks run by separate institutions, on the same currency.
| Country / bloc | Scheme | Direction | Currency | Settlement window | Refund mechanics | Regulator / scheme operator |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Euro area (SEPA) | SEPA Instant Credit Transfer (SCT Inst) | Pay-in, payout | EUR | Within 10 seconds under Regulation (EU) 2024/886 | No card chargeback. Recall is a request, not a right: the beneficiary must consent. Once credited, funds are final and the sending bank cannot unilaterally reverse them. | European Payments Council (scheme) |
| United Kingdom | Faster Payments | Pay-in, payout | GBP | Near real-time | No card chargeback, but PSR-mandated APP fraud reimbursement since 7 October 2024: the sending PSP reimburses eligible scam victims within 5 business days, cost split 50/50 with the receiving PSP, capped at £85,000 per claim. | Pay.UK (scheme operator); Payment Systems Regulator (reimbursement regime) |
| United States | RTP network | Pay-in, payout | USD | Instant, final | No card chargeback. A Request for Return of Funds message pair exists (camt.056 / camt.029), but the receiving bank has up to 10 business days and full discretion to refuse. Return is not guaranteed. | The Clearing House |
| United States | FedNow Service | Pay-in, payout | USD | Near real-time, in central bank money | No card chargeback; irrevocable once settled. A best-effort return-request mechanism exists under Federal Reserve operating rules, but the receiving bank is not obliged to comply. No timeline figure is published here because the primary sources were unreadable. | Federal Reserve |
| Brazil | Pix, including Pix Automático | Pay-in, payout | BRL | Instant | No card chargeback, but BCB Resolution nº 493 mandates the Mecanismo Especial de Devolução (MED): immediate blocking on a fraud report, up to 7 days to analyse and 96 hours to return, mandatory for all institutions from 2 February 2026. Covers proven fraud and institution operational error only, not user mistakes such as the wrong recipient or amount. | Banco Central do Brasil |
| Australia | New Payments Platform (NPP), including PayTo | Pay-in, payout | AUD | Real-time in central bank funds (Exchange Settlement Accounts) | No card chargeback; irrevocable once cleared under NPP Regulations 6.2. An inter-institution Payment Return process covers mistaken, misdirected, error and duplicate payments (Regulation 6.5). There is no consumer-facing scheme mechanism: the ePayments Code's mistaken-payment process excludes NPP and PayTo, so consumers use bank internal dispute resolution (30 days, ASIC RG 271) and then AFCA. | Australian Payments Plus / NPP Australia Limited |
| Nigeria | CBN open banking framework | Framework issued, not in nationwide production | NGN | Not applicable | Not applicable | Central Bank of Nigeria |
| Philippines | InstaPay (instant), PESONet (batch) | Pay-in, payout | PHP | InstaPay real-time; PESONet batch | No card chargeback. BSP Circular 1195 (30 May 2024) requires automatic return of failed transfers: InstaPay within 1 hour, PESONet within 2 hours. Wrong-recipient, wrong-amount and unauthorised transfers may follow a separate, non-automatic process; sources disagree on the scope, so this register does not state it. | Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas; BancNet (InstaPay) and PCHC (PESONet) |
| Canada | Interac e-Transfer | Pay-in, payout | CAD | Near-instant to the recipient. Interbank settlement runs over ACSS batch clearing, not real-time gross settlement. The Real-Time Rail is a separate Payments Canada system and is not yet live. | Cancellable before acceptance, then irrevocable once deposited. There is no chargeback of any kind and no reversal process. Fraud goes to the sender's bank or to law enforcement. | Interac Corp. (operator); Bank of Canada (prominent payment system oversight, Payment Clearing and Settlement Act) |
| Vietnam | NAPAS / VietQR | Pay-in, payout | VND | Near real-time, 24/7. Published figures differ by an order of magnitude, so no second-count is stated here. | No card-scheme chargeback. HSBC Vietnam describes NAPAS transfers as irrevocable. No reversal mechanism is confirmed by a second source. | National Payment Corporation of Vietnam (NAPAS), licensed by the State Bank of Vietnam |
| India | Unified Payments Interface (UPI) | Pay-in, payout | INR | Real-time to the user, 24x7. Interbank net settlement is T+0, same day. | No card-scheme chargeback, but the RBI requires auto-reversal of failed transactions by T+1 working day, with ₹100 a day compensation for delay beyond that. Completed but disputed transfers escalate through the bank's grievance process to the RBI Integrated Ombudsman Scheme. | National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), operator; Reserve Bank of India, regulator |
Sources: European Payments Council, Pay.UK, Payment Systems Regulator, The Clearing House, Federal Reserve, Banco Central do Brasil, Australian Payments Plus, Central Bank of Nigeria, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, Interac Corp., Bank of Canada, Payments Canada, NAPAS, NPCI and the Reserve Bank of India.
Category
What is the difference between open banking and real-time payments?
Open banking is the data and consent layer. It is the set of APIs, customer permissions and regulated roles that let an authorised third party read an account or start a payment from it. Real-time payments are the rail underneath that actually moves the money and settles it between banks.
A country can have one without the other, and three of the biggest markets on this page prove it.
Australia's Consumer Data Right is a data-sharing right. Banking is a designated CDR sector, and action initiation, the part that would let a third party start a payment, was legislated in 2024 but has not been switched on for any sector. The NPP moves the money, and it is a separate system.
In the United States, Dodd-Frank Section 1033 gives consumers a right to their financial data. Covered data includes account and routing numbers, so a third party can build payment functionality on top of it, but the third party's own ACH connection does the moving. The regulator operates no rail.
In the EU, PSD2 created the payment initiation service provider role. A PISP is a regulated firm authorised to start a payment on a customer's instruction. That role is defined by the regime, not by the rail; SEPA Instant runs whether or not a PISP is involved.
The industry already separates the two in its own labelling. Global Payments sells the method as Bank Payment and calls the infrastructure open banking.
Settlement
How long does an account-to-account payment take to settle?
Two clocks run on every account-to-account payment, and they rarely show the same time. The first is how fast the money reaches the recipient. The second is how fast the banks settle between themselves.
On the first clock, the schemes are fast. SEPA Instant must execute within 10 seconds under Regulation (EU) 2024/886. The European Payments Council reported in 2022 that about 99% of SCT Inst transactions completed in under five seconds. RTP settles instantly and finally. Pix is instant. UPI runs 24x7 in real time.
The second clock is where markets differ. Canada is the clearest case. An Interac e-Transfer reaches the recipient in minutes, but interbank settlement runs over ACSS batch clearing, and Canada's Real-Time Rail is a separate system that is not yet live. India is the milder version: real-time to the user, T+0 net settlement between banks.
Neither clock is your funding clock. Merchant funding depends on the settlement model your provider runs, not on the scheme. Direct settlement puts money in your own account as each payment lands, which is fast and hard to reconcile. Managed settlement batches it the way card settlement does. Where the payout currency differs from the collection currency, a correspondent leg over SWIFT can add both time and cost.
Where those funds land is a separate decision. See multi-currency IBAN accounts.
Refunds and recourse
Can you refund an account-to-account payment?
There is no card-scheme chargeback on any rail in this register. Not one of the eleven schemes carries the mechanic. For a merchant that removes a familiar cost. For a payer it removes a familiar safety net, and what replaces it is set by national rules rather than by the scheme.
We checked all ten refund cells individually against regulators, central banks and scheme rulebooks. Ten of ten came back different from the generic answer.
Recourse on an account-to-account payment varies by country, not by rail. It runs from a statutory deadline to no mechanism at all.
Three things to take from this section
- No scheme in the register carries a card-style chargeback.
- Recourse is set by national rules, so the same rail behaves differently across borders.
- Three markets impose a statutory deadline on reimbursement. Others impose nothing once funds land.
Three markets mandate recourse, with numbers
United Kingdom
The Payment Systems Regulator's authorised push payment fraud reimbursement regime took effect on 7 October 2024. The sending PSP reimburses an eligible scam victim within 5 business days. The cost splits 50/50 between the sending and receiving PSP. The cap is £85,000 per claim.
Brazil
BCB Resolution nº 493 mandates the Mecanismo Especial de Devolução. The bank blocks the funds immediately on a fraud report, takes up to 7 days to analyse, and returns within 96 hours of confirming. It has been mandatory for all institutions since 2 February 2026. It covers proven fraud and institution operational error. It does not cover user error, so a transfer sent to the wrong person or for the wrong amount falls outside it.
India
The Reserve Bank of India requires the beneficiary bank to auto-reverse a failed UPI transaction by T+1 working day, with ₹100 a day compensation if it runs later.
Four markets give the payer less than most write-ups imply
Canada
An Interac e-Transfer is cancellable before the recipient accepts it and irrevocable once deposited. There is no reversal process at all. Fraud goes to the sending bank or to law enforcement.
Euro area
A SEPA Instant recall is a request, not a right. The beneficiary has to consent. Once funds are credited the payment is final.
United States, RTP
The Request for Return of Funds message pair exists for errant and fraudulent payments. The receiving bank has up to 10 business days to answer and may deny the request outright.
Australia
An inter-institution Payment Return process covers mistaken, misdirected, error and duplicate payments under NPP Regulation 6.5. That is bank to bank. The consumer-facing ePayments Code excludes NPP and PayTo, which leaves a consumer with the bank's internal dispute resolution and then AFCA.
FedNow and the Philippines ship qualified in the table above, and we have left them that way. FedNow's return mechanism is real but every primary route to its timings was unreadable, so no day-count appears here. For the Philippines, the 1-hour and 2-hour automatic return of failed transfers is well corroborated; whether wrong-recipient and unauthorised transfers are excluded is not.
You have just seen that recourse depends on which country you collect in
Tell us the corridors you actually run and we will tell you what that means for your chargeback exposure, your reserve and your payout schedule.
Regulators
Who regulates open banking in each market?
Regulator and rail operator are different roles, and in most markets they are different institutions. The register keeps them in one column because they overlap on the page and almost never overlap in real life.
| Market | Open banking / data access regime | Regulator | Rail operator |
|---|---|---|---|
| Euro area | PSD2; Regulation (EU) 2024/886 for instant payments and Verification of Payee | National competent authorities | European Payments Council (scheme) |
| United Kingdom | Not documented here | Financial Conduct Authority; Payment Systems Regulator | Pay.UK |
| United States | Dodd-Frank Section 1033, Personal Financial Data Rights. Finalized, currently enjoined | Consumer Financial Protection Bureau | Federal Reserve (FedNow); The Clearing House (RTP) |
| Brazil | Not documented here | Banco Central do Brasil | Banco Central do Brasil (Pix) |
| Australia | Consumer Data Right, banking a designated sector since 2019. Payment initiation legislated, never commenced | ACCC, with Treasury | Australian Payments Plus (NPP) |
| Nigeria | CBN Regulatory Framework 2021 and Operational Guidelines, March 2023 | Central Bank of Nigeria | Not in nationwide production |
| India | Not documented here | Reserve Bank of India | NPCI (UPI) |
Sources: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Congressional Research Service, Treasury of Australia, ACCC, European Payments Council, Federal Reserve, The Clearing House, Central Bank of Nigeria and the Reserve Bank of India.
The United States needs three sentences, and compressing it to one gets it wrong. The CFPB finalized the Personal Financial Data Rights rule under Section 1033 on 22 October 2024. Since 2025 the Bureau has argued its own rule is unlawful and has opened a reconsideration, through an advance notice of proposed rulemaking published on 22 August 2025. On 29 October 2025 a federal court in the Eastern District of Kentucky enjoined the CFPB from enforcing the rule without vacating it, so the rule exists, is not currently enforceable, and no replacement has been finalized. The original compliance schedule ran in five asset-size tiers, and its first date, 1 April 2026, never became a binding enforcement trigger.
That is the section's point in one market. The CFPB writes the data-access rule and operates no rail. The Federal Reserve and The Clearing House operate rails and write no data-access rule. Australia splits the same way, with the ACCC administering the Consumer Data Right while Australian Payments Plus runs the NPP.
Boldrails names these regimes as market context. We hold the necessary licences required in the markets we serve.
Three markets show "not documented here" in the access-regime column. That is deliberate. We hold a source for the rail and the regulator in those markets, and we did not verify an access regime to the same standard, so the cell stays empty instead of being filled from general knowledge.
Methodology
How this register is compiled
A scheme appears here if it is a domestic account-to-account rail with a named operator, or a national open-banking access regime with a named regulator. Card networks, wallets built on top of card rails and cross-border correspondent products are out of scope.
Sources rank in two tiers. First the scheme operator, the central bank or the regulator. Second a law firm, a professional-services body or an established outlet, used only to corroborate or where the primary was unreachable. Competitor pages are context and are never counted as a source.
Where public sources disagree, the register marks the row and takes the conservative reading. Three rows currently qualify: the Philippine transfer limit, Vietnam’s settlement figure and the non-euro-area instant payment deadlines. A separate case is a fact that rests on a single source rather than on conflicting ones, which is why Australia’s scheme currency is published from the scheme regulations alone and labelled as such. In each case we publish the narrower claim or no claim.
Refresh cadence
We re-check the register quarterly and after any rule change we are told about.
The same method built our sponsor bank register, and reconciles against our own acceptance index.
Primary sources
- Federal Reserve, FedNow Service
- The Clearing House, RTP network
- Payment Systems Regulator, APP fraud reimbursement
- Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Personal Financial Data Rights
- Australian Payments Plus, New Payments Platform
- Reserve Bank of India, turnaround-time circular
- Central Bank of Nigeria
- Bank of Canada, prominent payment systems
- Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas
Our coverage
Where Boldrails collects and pays out
This register documents other institutions' infrastructure. Our own coverage is a separate list, and it is shorter.
We provide open banking payments in Nigeria, pay-in and payout. Across the rest of our footprint we collect and disburse over local bank transfer, mobile money and card rails.
A scheme existing in a country is not the same as a merchant being able to use it. Access depends on your vertical, your volumes and who will underwrite you.
Every market and rail we run is listed on the acceptance index, with the methods and currencies for each.
Get approved
A coverage register tells you what exists. An acceptance register tells you what you can get.
Send us your vertical, monthly volume and corridors, and we will tell you which of the two lists you land on.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Last updated: 6 August 2026