Rapid ACH Growth Threatens Credit Card Revenue Streams

The ACH Network soared to new levels in 2025 as the number of payments and value of both standard and same-day ACH usage grew during the year, according to a press release from Nacha, the organization that governs the ACH Network.

Credit card issuers will want to take note of the growth in ACH payments. Issuers may have their hands full fending off competition from rival card companies, but other forms of payment can also take business away from them.

From a volume perspective, the ACH Network surpassed 35 billion payments in 2025, which represents an increase of almost 5% from the prior year’s level. Those payments had a staggering value of $93 trillion, which is a bump of nearly 8% over 2024.

While last year was a significant one for ACH payments, recent activity suggests that 2026 may be even bigger. The ACH Network saw a record volume of payments and same-day ACH payments in December 2025, according to Nacha.

And, in November, the network posted a new high in terms of average daily volume with more than 151 million payments per day.

In 2025, volume on the ACH Network topped 35 billion payments, an increase of close to 5% in comparison to the previous year.

“These impressive results and new records show that the modern ACH network is continuing to meet the needs of American consumers and businesses for safe, fast payments,” Jane Larimer, President and CEO at Nacha, said in the release.

On the business-to-business front, payment volume approached 8.1 billion, an increase of close to 10% over 2025’s activities.

Larimer said in the release that the statistics support the fact that businesses of all sizes are turning away from using checks.

It’s not the first time Nacha has referenced the demise of paper checks. A blog post on Nacha’s website from fall 2025 reveals that more than 80% of B2B payments in 2004 involved paper checks. But by 2025, that figure had dropped to 26%.

Nacha’s post referenced a report that attributed the shift away from checks to the convenience, cost-effectiveness, and safety of digital payments.

The ease and affordability of ACH payments may not cause people to move away from using credit cards to the same degree that they’ve slowed down their use of paper checks. But the growing popularity of ACH payments is something card industry professionals should be mindful of to help them shape their strategies.

People have many reasons why they may choose to make an ACH payment rather than turning to their credit card. Those who make ACH payments can sidestep the interest charges that accompany revolving credit card balances.

In addition, a person making an ACH payment doesn’t have to worry about whether that transaction will put them over their credit limit.

Accepting ACH payments can be less expensive for businesses than dealing with credit card transactions. Credit card payments come with fees that often amount to a fraction of the total purchase value. Those small amounts can add up quickly for a business that accepts many credit card payments over the course of a day.

A recent report reveals that banks and payment processors charge a relatively small flat fee on ACH payments, regardless of the amount of the transaction.

Businesses seeking to cut costs may prefer to push their customers to make ACH payments than use credit cards. But when businesses steer their customers and partners to ACH payments, it can take money out of a credit card issuer’s pockets. 

Businesses may prefer receiving ACH payments because they can be less expensive to process than payments from credit cards.

Competing with ACH payments on price alone may be difficult for issuers. But card companies can prevent losing volume to ACH payments in the business space by promoting the value they offer to a firm functioning as the payor in a transaction.

Card companies can identify which segments of their business cardholders are more likely to make ACH payments and communicate that using a credit card may make better use of their working capital.

While funds involved in an ACH payment can quickly leave a business’s account, companies can retain the monies they spend in a credit card transaction for a longer time if necessary. 

Issuers can also offer businesses robust spend management tools that enable them to track and analyze their day-to-day expense activity. Value-added services such as AI-driven cash analytics and forecasting allow an issuer to position itself in a business owner’s eyes as more than a provider of payment tools.

The new data from Nacha highlights a fact that many in the credit card arena should be aware of — ACH payments are growing in popularity in the U.S. But the sky isn’t falling on credit card companies.

To defend their slice of the payments pie, issuers can point cardholders to the advantages credit cards offer that ACH payments can’t match.