Key features

Fundamentally, a request to pay enables a payee to make a request for the initiation of a payment by a payer. The payee and the payer may be persons, businesses or any other payment account holders.

The essential steps in a request to pay process are usually the following:

• A request is made by the payee.
• The payer is provided with information on the amount, description of the purpose of the transaction and payee information.
• The payer decides to approve or decline the request, resulting in the authorisation (or the refusal) of the payment transaction.
• Upon approval of the payment request, the payer’s payment service provider is instructed to execute a payment to the payee.

R2P is based on a four-corner model: as a real-time messaging layer separate from the clearing & settlement layer​, R2P enables the request to pay-related message flow between the service providers of the payee and the payer.

With a four-corner model, all request-to-pay service providers (RTP-SPs) have the flexibility to develop their own end-user products.

R2P allows local request to pay solutions to interoperate and it provides the basis on which RTP-SPs can create new pan-European solutions.