Real-time account-to-account (A2A) payments and card payments both move money from a customer to your business, but they take very different routes to get there. That difference affects how fast you get paid, how much each payment costs you, and whether a customer can reverse it later. This page compares the two so you can decide which method fits each part of your business.

​
The core difference

A card payment travels through a card network. The customer’s bank (the issuer), the card scheme (such as Visa or Mastercard), and your bank (the acquirer) all take part. A real-time A2A payment skips all of that and moves money directly between the two bank accounts over a real-time system such as Australia’s NPP or the United States’ FedNow. Fewer parties in the middle generally means lower cost, faster access to money, and no chargebacks, but also no built-in way to reverse a payment after it settles.

​
Side-by-side comparison

​
Speed and settlement

With a real-time A2A payment, the money is in your account within seconds, at any hour. A card payment is approved in a moment, but the actual money usually reaches you one to three business days later, after the card network processes a batch. If steady cash flow matters to your business, that gap is worth weighing.

​
Cost

Every party in a card payment takes a small cut, which adds up to what merchants know as the merchant discount rate. A real-time A2A payment has fewer parties, so it usually costs less per payment. For businesses that process a high volume of payments, moving some of them from cards to A2A can meaningfully lower total costs.

​
Disputes and chargebacks

A card customer can dispute a payment and trigger a chargeback, which pulls the money back and often charges the merchant a fee. A settled A2A payment has no such mechanism; it is final. That removes a common source of lost revenue for merchants, but it also means your own fraud checks and refund process carry more weight, since there is no network to reverse a payment for you.

​
Data and matching payments to records

A2A payments can carry extra details, such as an invoice number, right inside the payment. That makes it easier for a system to match each payment to the right order automatically. Card payments carry less information, so matching them to your records can take more manual effort.

​
When to use each

Reach for real-time A2A when

You want fast access to funds, lower fees, no chargebacks, and easy reconciliation, for example invoices, subscriptions, and high-volume checkouts.

Reach for cards when

Your customers expect to pay by card, you want the familiarity of a card checkout, or your business model relies on the ability to authorise now and capture later.
Most businesses do not have to choose only one. Offering both a real-time A2A option and a card option at checkout removes friction for customers who prefer one over the other, which helps more of them complete the purchase.
For a deeper look at how a card payment moves through authorization, capture, and settlement, see how card payments work.