ACH payments are online payments that move funds to a merchant from a user's bank account. Rainforest's default ACH deposit timing is T+4, a conservative window designed to allow most administrative ACH Returns to process before funds are deposited to a merchant. Accelerated ACH enables ACH payments to be configured for a T+1 deposit timing.

ACH payments can be accelerated by running a frictionless bank validation directly with participating banks or validating the user's bank account with Validated ACH. If Rainforest is able to validate the ACH payment method, then the ACH payment can be accelerated to a T+1 deposit timing.

Frictionless bank validation

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When processing an ACH payment with the Accelerated ACH feature enabled, Rainforest will automatically perform a frictionless bank validation with participating banks. This validation will be performed on each new ACH payment method. When processing a payment from a stored payment method, if the payment method has already been validated within the last year, then Rainforest will not perform the check again.

Rainforest will decline the payment if the participating bank indicates that the account is closed or inactive. Otherwise, the payment will be processed and deposited in the merchant's next deposit on a T+1 deposit timing. The frictionless bank validation occurs in the background and is invisible to the end user.

Validated ACH

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When processing a Validated ACH payment with the Accelerated ACH feature enabled, Rainforest acknowledges this payment method has been validated via the end user authenticating into their online bank account. All Validated ACH payments will be processed and deposited in the merchant's next deposit on a T+1 deposit timing.

Deposit timing

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Accelerated ACH payments are set with a deposit timing of T+1, which is not currently configurable.

Enable accelerated ACH

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If you are interested in enabling accelerated ACH payments, please reach out to your Platform Success Manager or support to enable this feature.

Once Rainforest enables this feature for your platform, you may begin enabling the feature on a merchant by merchant basis. This can be done by setting the accelerated_ach_mode in the update merchant request.

All existing merchants must be enabled utilizing the update merchant endpoint to set the accelerated_ach_mode field to ENABLED. The platform may disable this feature on a merchant to manage risk or cost by utilizing the same endpoint and setting the accelerated_ach_mode field to DISABLED.

Billing

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Accelerated ACH rate and fee

ACH payments that are accelerated and deposited before the standard ACH deposit timing incur a separate rate and fee from standard ACH payins.

The Accelerated ACH Rate and Fee can be passed onto the merchant via the merchant billing profile. Accelerated payins will use this rate and fee instead of the standard ACH rate and fee.

Frictionless validation fee

The first time a payment method is used to accelerate a payment, a one time Frictionless Validation Fee is billed. Recurring accelerated payments on the same payment method will not incur the frictionless validation fee.

The Frictionless Validation Fee can be passed onto the merchant via the merchant billing profile.

Exceptions

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Rainforest continually monitors the cumulative amount of payments accelerated on a merchant, and reserves the right to decelerate any individual payment to the merchant's default ACH deposit timing before it is deposited or to disabled the ability to accelerate any ACH payment (either temporarily or permanently) to manage real or perceived risk. Excessive ACH returns can also make a merchant ineligible to use this feature.

A payment that was initially accelerated but then decelerated prior to being deposited for risk reasons may still incur the Frictionless Validation Fee, but will incur the standard ACH billing fees instead of the Accelerated ACH billing fees.