A payment rail is a payment platform or a payment network that moves money from a payer to a payee. Either party could be a consumer or business, and both parties are able to move funds on the network. Credit card rails are the credit card payment system.

Blockchain The blockchain is a distributed ledger with growing lists of Record (computer science), records (''blocks'') that are securely linked together via Cryptographic hash function, cryptographic hashes. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of th ...

is considered a newer type of payment rail, as are centralized electronic payment systems such as

PayPal PayPal Holdings, Inc. is an American multinational financial technology company operating an online payments system in the majority of countries that support E-commerce payment system, online money transfers; it serves as an electronic alter ...

, Venmo and Zelle. If the transferred funds are available immediately, a payment rail is referred to as a real-time rail.

References

{{finance-stub Payment systems Payment networks Banking technology Banking terms Payment clearing systems Banking in the United States