When we originally launched Link, we were focused on building an accelerated checkout experience that increased conversion. By autofilling your customers’ payment and address details, Link reduces friction and increases checkout conversion by an average of 14% for businesses with a large returning customer base. Now, we’re making Link more than a streamlined checkout: we’re expanding it to create novel payment experiences that help you reduce complexity and costs, starting with a new way to accept ACH with Instant Bank Payments. 

With Instant Bank Payments, your customers can check out with Link and pay with their US bank account in just a few clicks. Payments are then confirmed instantly and settle in two business days—just like card payments—and Stripe guarantees the risk of bank-initiated returns. In addition, Instant Bank Payments are priced at 2.6% + 30¢ per successful charge, a discount to cards. This has allowed businesses such as Uber and Anthropologie to benefit from the cost savings of bank payments without having to manage the delayed confirmation time and risk of failed bank payments that are traditionally associated with ACH.

“Creating payment experiences that combine innovation, reduced friction, and cost savings is at the core of what we do. Using Instant Bank Payments to give customers the option to easily pay with their bank accounts puts us in a position to tick all those boxes while providing access to an increasingly popular mode of payment,” said Karl Hébert, vice president of payments, risk, and identity at Uber.

Here’s how Instant Bank Payments can help you reduce costs and increase conversion.

Process orders without delay thanks to instant confirmation and faster settlement 

Traditional ACH payments take up to four days to be confirmed, which impacts the type of businesses that are able to accept ACH. For example, businesses that must deliver goods and services immediately can’t wait four days for the payment to be confirmed. 

To ensure that you can fill orders without delay, Instant Bank Payments match the speed of card payments. Transactions are immediately confirmed, and authorized payments are guaranteed to settle into your account within two business days. This is made possible by our machine learning models that are trained on the hundreds of billions of dollars in payments processed across the Stripe network (including billions of dollars of ACH transactions we process each month). These models effectively manage transaction risk, allowing us to offer accelerated processing times.

Offload the risk of bank-initiated returns to Stripe

With standard ACH transactions, you have to manage the operational complexity of failed bank payments, such as notifying customers, getting updated payment information, reprocessing the transaction, and managing any return fees. 

With Instant Bank Payments, Stripe guarantees payments even if they are later returned by the bank. Our models allow us to maximize successful payments and better predict payment failures.

Offer a seamless checkout experience for your customers

Traditional ACH payments cause significant friction for customers. Each time they want to pay with their bank account, they have to log in to their bank or manually enter their banking information. 

Instant Bank Payments are built into Link, which simplifies and speeds up this process. On Stripe’s optimized checkout surfaces, your customers can connect their bank accounts in a few clicks. Returning Link users can reuse their bank accounts across businesses for future transactions. Already, 85% of customers have chosen to make a repeat purchase with Instant Bank Payments.

To learn more about Instant Bank Payments, read our docs.