Dive Brief:

• In the first quarter of 2026, the ACH Network’s payments volume grew 4.8% over last year to 8.9 million transactions, Nacha said in a Monday press release. The value of those ACH Network transactions rose 9.3% from a year earlier to $24.1 trillion.
• Same-day ACH payments surged 23.6% year over year to 403 million transactions in for the quarter. The value of those payments jumped 22.1% from a year prior to $1.1 trillion, the release said.
• Business-to-business payment volume grew year over year by 9.4% to 2.1 billion transactions, according to the release.

Dive Insight:

Transactions across peer-to-peer payments, direct deposits and healthcare payments were among the categories driving ACH payment growth in the quarter. Peer-to-peer payments volume climbed 18.5% from a year earlier to 129.3 million. And while online payments increased 5.4% from a year prior to 2.9 billion payments, healthcare payments grew by nearly 5% to 131.1 million transactions.

“The strong growth in both Same Day ACH and B2B payments reflect the strength of the ACH Network,” Nacha CEO Jane Larimer said in the release. “ACH payments are moving the nation’s businesses away from checks, and Same Day ACH is helping to meet the demand for faster payments.”

Nacha is the nonprofit that governs the ACH Network, with the Federal Reserve and The Clearing House, which is owned by a consortium of banks, acting as operators. The payments volume it handles has been steadily moving upward in recent years.

As Nacha’s payment volumes have risen on the ACH Network, the organization has strengthened its relationship with America's largest bank, JPMorgan Chase. In February, Nacha said it planned to use JPMorgan's blockchain-based data sharing network to integrate Nacha’s peer-to-peer payment information network within the bank’s blockchain-based data sharing network, so JPMorgan’s system can verify U.S. accountholders’ information.

While Nacha grows its ACH Network volumes, the Federal Reserve has been working to make its payment services more useful to financial institutions. Last September, the Federal Reserve said it would raise the limit for FedNow instant payments from $1 million to $10 million, a move aimed at enabling financial institutions to process payments for purposes such as corporate payroll, real estate transactions and vendor payments.

A month later, the central bank said it would extend the business operation hours for its Fedwire Funds Service and the National Settlement Service to Sundays and some holidays, but the extension wouldn't take effect until 2028, at the earliest.