Catalog the payout rails available to your platform: domestic ACH (low cost, 1-3 day settlement), Same-Day ACH (higher cost, same-day), RTP/FedNow (near-instant, US only, per-transaction cap), Visa Direct OCT (minutes, card rails), SWIFT wire (expensive, international), and stablecoin (24/7, on-chain settlement).
For each seller/recipient, capture three routing parameters at onboarding: country, preferred settlement currency, and required speed tier (standard, accelerated, or instant) — use these to build a routing decision matrix.
Implement a routing function that selects the optimal rail: US recipients with debit cards get Visa Direct for instant payouts; US bank accounts below the Same-Day ACH cap get Same-Day ACH for same-day delivery; large US B2B payouts get FedNow or wire; international recipients with USD tolerance get USDC on Solana for 24/7 near-instant settlement; others get SWIFT.
Abstract the routing function behind a single internal Payout API that accepts amount, currency, recipient, and speed_tier — the routing logic maps to provider-specific API calls (Stripe Transfer, Wise API, Circle Programmable Wallets, etc.) invisible to upstream callers.
Track per-rail costs: ACH is typically the cheapest for US domestic; Visa Direct carries a per-transaction fee via acquirer; SWIFT carries SEPA or correspondent bank fees; stablecoin carries gas fees — log rail selection and cost per payout for optimization reporting.
Implement rail fallback logic: if Visa Direct is declined (card ineligible), fall back to ACH; if Same-Day ACH submission window is missed, fall back to next-day ACH; log fallback events for reporting and seller communication.
Known gotchas
No single rail covers all geographies and recipient types — building a multi-rail strategy from the start avoids costly re-architecting later when you expand to new markets; plan the routing abstraction layer before going live.
Transaction caps on individual rails (Same-Day ACH per-transaction cap, RTP/FedNow per-transaction cap) must be enforced in your routing logic — failing to validate amount against the selected rail's cap causes hard errors at the provider; always validate before routing.
Regulatory and compliance requirements differ by rail and geography — stablecoin payouts trigger travel rule requirements in many jurisdictions; SWIFT payments above certain thresholds require OFAC screening; ACH has NACHA compliance obligations — route only over rails for which you have completed compliance review for each corridor.
Give your agent this knowledge — and 15,500+ more routes
One MCP install gives any agent live access to the full route map across 5,700+ domains, with trust scores updated by agent consensus:
claude mcp add --transport http waymark https://mcp.waymark.network/mcp
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