# The Clearing House (RTP)

**Canonical:** https://apis.io/providers/the-clearing-house/  
**Website:** https://www.theclearinghouse.org/  
**APIs profiled:** 1

The Clearing House (TCH) is a U.S. banking association and payments company owned by many of the largest commercial banks. It operates three core payment systems: CHIPS (large-value wire clearing), the EPN automated clearing house (ACH), and the RTP network, the private-sector real-time payments rail it launched in 2017 as the first new U.S. payments infrastructure in decades. RTP is a 24/7/365 instant-payments scheme built on the ISO 20022 messaging standard, supporting immediate credit-push transfers up to $10 million with final settlement, plus Request for Payment (RfP), remittance data, and a UID addressing/directory lookup. TCH is the scheme operator for the U.S. market and competes with the Federal Reserve's FedNow service. Its API posture is documentation- and rulebook-first: TCH does not publish an open, self-serve public REST API or downloadable OpenAPI/Swagger specification. Instead it publishes ISO 20022 message specifications (pacs, pain, camt, remt) as PDFs, the RTP network operating rules, playbooks, and a technology-provider program. Real-time HTTP/JSON RTP APIs are surfaced to businesses by participating financial institutions (for example U.S. Bank) and registered technology providers that connect to the RTP network on their behalf.

## Kin Score — 12.9 / 100 (emerging)

Scored 2026-08-20 under rubric 0.12.0. Trend: flat (+0.0 from 12.9).

| Facet | Score |
|---|---|
| Discoverability | 66.7 |
| Contract Quality | 0.0 |
| Governance | 18.2 |
| Contract Governance | 18.2 |
| Operational Transparency | 0.0 |
| Developer Ergonomics | 16.7 |
| Commercial Clarity | 10.5 |
| Access Clarity | 10.5 |

Regulatory layer — **Payments**: 23.4 (matched via tags).

## Agent readiness — 0.0 (human-only)

| Dimension | Value |
|---|---|
| Spec Presence | no |
| Agentic Access | no |
| Reversibility Documented | no |
| MCP Server | no |
| Auth Clarity | no |
| Idempotency | no |
| Error Semantics | no |
| OpenAPI Examples | no |
| Rate Limit Signal | no |
| Event Surface Described | no |
| Agent Skills | no |
| Well Known Catalog | no |
| Consent Identity | no |
| Agent Card | no |
| Dry Run Mode | no |

## APIs (1)

- **RTP Network (ISO 20022 Messaging)** — The RTP network is The Clearing House's real-time payments scheme for the United States, moving credit-push payments instantly, 24/7/365, with final settlement up to $10 million...

## Security (1)

- **The Clearing House Domain Security** — TLSv1.3 · HSTS · DMARC

## Tags

Payments, United States, Real-Time Payments, Instant Payments, ISO 20022, Account-to-Account, Payment Rails, Scheme Operator, Request for Payment

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Profiled by [API Evangelist](https://apievangelist.com) and published on [APIs.io](https://apis.io/providers/the-clearing-house/). Scores are computed from the provider's own public artifacts under a published rubric.