Transfer Limits

Transfer limits serve as critical guardrails that help your institution maintain security, prevent fraud, and ensure regulatory compliance while providing customers with necessary flexibility. This includes daily ACH push limits (for sending funds to accounts), ACH pull limits (for receiving funds from accounts), wire transfer limits for organizations, or specific limits by time period. Your institution can easily implement these transfer limits at both consumer or business levels through segmentation. This article covers the types of transfer limits available, how they're calculated, and how they impact your customers' banking experience. To configure or adjust your transfer limits, please contact your Narmi Relationship Manager.

For more information on banking segments, go to Segmentation. (This article is visible only to Narmi clients. Please create an account to view.)

To see how users view their transfer limits, go to Transfer Disclosures.

In this article:

Consumer Transfer Limits

Limits can be customized on a per-segment basis. Consumer limits apply to wire transfers, remote check deposits, and ACH push/pull transfers to external accounts (not internal accounts). For example, you can impose a daily ACH push limit of $500 and a 30-day ACH push limit of $2,500. This means the user cannot send money to an external account exceeding $500 per day and exceeding $2,500 over the span of 30 days.

Business Transfer Limits

Businesses have an organizational limit, depending on the segment limit that they belong to. With a set organizational limit, financial institutions can ensure that the business’ transfer limit is capped at the segment limit, regardless of the number of business banking users who belong to a specific business account. Business transfer limits apply to wire transfers or ACH push/pull transfers to external accounts (not internal accounts). The single organizational limit applies to wire transfers with and without templates, in other words, using a template does not have a separate limit.

Businesses can also set individual sub-user limits within their organizational limits. Admins or Account Holders can set individual limits when adding a new sub-user or editing a sub-user in Manage Users. For instructions, go to Manage Users. The single individual user limit applies to wire transfers with and without templates, in other words, using a template does not have a separate limit.

Organizational Limit Example

A business has an organizational ACH push daily limit of $10,000. Business User A completes an external transfer for $7,000. The remaining ACH push limit for the day is now $3,000. If User B attempts to initiate an external transfer for $4,000, User B will receive an error message indicating they cannot exceed the external transfer push limit, but if User B attempted to send a transfer of $3,000, they would be able to complete the transfer successfully.
Transfer limit exceeded notification with transfer details and options displayed.

Sub-user Limit Example

A business has an organizational daily wire limit of $10,000 but Business User A has an individual daily wire limit of $1,000. If User A attempts to initiate a wire transfer for $4,000, they will receive an error message indicating their wire transfer limit has been exceeded.

Wire transfer form showing exceeded limit notification and transaction details.

Limit Periods and Availability

ACH, Wire, and RDC Availability

With segmentation, your institution can set limits on your users' ACH transfers to external accounts, wire transfers, and remote check deposits (RDCs). To edit these settings, please contact your Narmi Relationship Manager. The following settings are available:

Immediate ACH pull limit – The amount that is immediately available to the user from money requested (pulled) via an ACH transaction.
ACH pull limit – The maximum amount the user can request (pull) within a specified timeframe.
ACH push limit – The maximum amount the user can send (push) within a specified timeframe.
Wire limit – The maximum amount the user can send via wire within a specified timeframe.
Immediate RDC limit – The amount that is immediately available to the user from remote deposit captures (RDC), or mobile check deposits.

Your institution can configure the following settings for hold days and cutoff times in Narmi Command > Configurations > Institution settings:

ACH Hold Days – The default number of days a hold is placed on funds that are pulled from an external account. This value determines how long until funds become available for any ACH pull. If the user makes a pull request for more than their immediate availability, this hold applies to the amount over that immediate limit. This value does not affect a user's ACH limit timeframe. Please note that we automatically add an additional hold day for ACH transfers submitted after your ACH cut-off hour. This setting is required and can be adjusted directly from Institution Settings, or at the segment level. The default is 2 days.
ACH Cutoff Time – The cutoff time used for automated NACHA file generation, if configured. The value entered must be a whole integer representing the start of the hour in your financial institution's timezone. This setting only accepts integers from 0 to 23, representing a 24-hour day. For example, if your desired cutoff time is 6:00 pm, the value entered should be 18. There is no default value. The ACH File SFTP Delivery URL must also be configured. Go to About ACH Transactions for more information.
RDC Cutoff Time – The cut-off time for mobile app remote deposits used to calculate the Expected availability date, which is shown on the deposit receipt once the remote deposit is completed. If a user deposits a check after the RDC cutoff time, we add one business day to the expected availability date. The Expected availability date only shows if your institution has hold days configured via the segment setting features.hold_days.rdc_hold_days or the institution setting Mobile Check Deposit Hold Days.
For RDC Cutoff Time, the value entered must be a whole integer representing the start of the hour in your financial institution's timezone. This setting only accepts integers from 0 to 23, representing a 24-hour day. For example, if your desired cutoff time is 6:00 pm, the value entered should be 18. There is no default value.

Mobile Check Deposit Hold Days – The default number of days a hold is placed on RDC funds. This value determines how long until funds become available for any RDC. If the user makes an RDC for more than their immediate availability, this hold applies to the amount over that immediate limit. This value does not affect a user's RDC limit timeframe. This setting is required and can be adjusted directly from institution settings or at the segment level. The default is 2 days.

Two variables contribute to the user's ACH availability—the recent total and the pending total. The recent total is the amount of ACH transfers initiated within the specified timeframe. The pending total is the amount of ACH transfers that have not been processed yet by the NACHA tool, which runs on federal business days. ACH availability is calculated by the ACH limit amount minus the recent and pending totals. ACH availability resets once the following conditions are met: 1) the ACH is processed (the NACHA file with the ACH is generated) and 2) at least 24 hours have passed since the transfer was initiated (since the user submitted the transfer online). The NACHA generator runs at a configurable hour each business day, but usually around the close of the business day. The ACH transaction will be in a pending state until the NACHA generator runs, but even once processed, it must be 24 hours since the transfer was initiated for the ACH availability to be reset.

For more information on the schedules in which ACH transactions are processed, go to About ACH Transactions.

ACH Limit Weekday Example

A user has an daily ACH push limit of $1,000 and sends $1,000 at 2:00 pm on Monday. They cannot send again until 2:01 pm on Tuesday.

ACH Limit Weekend Example

For this example, the NACHA generator runs at 4:00 pm each business day. A user has a daily ACH push limit of $1,000 and sends $1,000 at 5:00 pm on Friday. Because the transaction is in a pending state until the NACHA generator runs on Monday at 4:00 pm, they cannot send again until 4:01 pm on Monday.

ACH Availability with Holds Example

Your institution's ACH pull limits are $2,000 per 3 days and $10,000 per 30 days. Your institution's immediate ACH pull availability is $1,000. Your ACH Hold Days setting is 2 days. A user initiates an ACH pull for $1,500 at 12:00 pm on Monday. The user's 3-day ACH pull limit is now $500 and the 30-day ACH pull limit is now $8,500. $1,000 of the transfer will be immediately available, but a hold is placed on the remaining $500. The user's immediate ACH availability is now $0.

Because hold records are maintained on your core, not Narmi, the exact expiration of the hold may vary according to your core configuration. For example, Narmi may submit a hold request to your core with a precise expiration timestamp ("Wednesday at 12:00 pm"), or it may submit general information about the hold length ("2 days") that your core will interpret when creating the hold. Please contact support@narmi.com or consult your core's hold documentation for more details.

If the user initiates another ACH pull request for $500 before the hold expires, a hold will be placed over the entire amount, since the user's immediate ACH availability will not have reset.

Scheduled Transfer Availability

For scheduled transfers, on the day the transfer is to be executed, Narmi checks the user's account balance and limits between 7:00 – 8:00 am their local time. If sufficient funds are in the account and the transfer amount is within the user's limits, the transfer will execute as expected. If the account has insufficient funds or the transfer amount exceeds the user's limits, the transfer will not execute, and the user receives an email notification.

Limits Timeframe

Daily limits follow a rolling 24-hour limit, meaning the 24 hours immediately before the current time, not a calendar day. Limits greater than a day follow a rolling day limit, for example, monthly limits follow a rolling 30-day period, meaning the 30 x 24 hours before the current time. A 5-day limit would be the 5 x 24 hours before the current time, and so on.

How Timestamps Affect the Limit

Each transaction's timestamp determines whether it is included in the user’s limit. Transactions are removed from the limit calculation once they exceed the rolling time window, based on their timestamp. For example, users who reach their daily limit must wait for earlier transactions to “drop off” before making new ones.

For one-time transfers, the timestamp of the transfer is when it was submitted—when the user selected Make transfer in the transfer flow. This is also when the one-time transfer is processed.

For scheduled transfers, the timestamp of the transfer is 00:00:00am in your institution's time zone. For example, if your institution’s time zone is Eastern Time (ET) and a user scheduled a transfer for Feb 28th, the timestamp is 0:00:00am ET on Feb 28th. The scheduled transfer is executed between 7:00 – 8:00 am in the user’s local time zone.

If a user makes a one-time transfer on a day with a scheduled transfer, the limits are respected and no transfers over the limits will be executed. Additionally, if a user has multiple scheduled transfers for the same day, the limits are respected and only those scheduled transfers within the limits will be executed. Note: The user will not be notified of scheduled transfers that did not go through.

Daily Limit Example
A user has a daily ACH push limit of $500. They send $500 at 2:00 pm on Monday. They cannot send again until 2:01 pm on Tuesday.
Monthly Limit Example
A user has a 30-day ACH pull limit of $1000. They request $350 on August 1st and $650 on August 2nd, reaching their $1000 rolling 30-day limit. On August 31st, the user’s August 1st pull will no longer be in the rolling 30-day window, so they will have $350 available in their limit. On September 1st, the August 2nd pull will no longer be in the rolling 30-day window, making an additional $650 available in their limit.
Scheduled Transfer Example
A user’s daily ACH push limit is $5000 and they have a scheduled transfer on February 15th for $5000, which will be created at 12:00 am on February 15th. If they log in on the day of February 15th and attempt to make a one-time transfer of $5000 at 6:00 am, that would exceed the limit and the transfer will not be allowed.

View a User's Transfer Limits

To view a specific user's transfer limits, from Narmi Command, go to Manage Users, open the user's profile, and scroll down to the Features section. Look for a limits section in the table.

Table with the Limits row highlighted showing various payment limits.

The following values are possible, depending on your institution's configuration:

immediate_rdc – The amount that is immediately available to the user from remote deposit captures (RDC), or mobile check deposits. For example, {'3': 7000} means within the last 3 days, the immediate availability cannot exceed $7,000 for remote deposit captures.
immediate_ach_pull – The amount that is immediately available to the user from money requested via an ACH transaction. For example, {'1': 1000} means within the last day, the immediate availability cannot exceed $1000 for ACH transactions.

Note: immediate_rdc and immediate_ach_pull require real-time posting (RTP) to be enabled.

ach_pull – The maximum amount the user can request (pull) within a specified timeframe. For example, {'30': 5500, '1': 500} means within the last 30 days, the user cannot request more than $2,500 into their account, and within the last day, the user cannot request more than $500 into their account.
ach_push – The maximum amount the user can send (push) via ACH transfers within a specified timeframe. For example, {'3': 5000, '1': 500} means within the last 3 days, the user cannot send more than $5,000 from their account, and within the last day, the user cannot send more than $500 from their account.
unverified_ach_push – The maximum amount the business user can send (push) via ACH payments to an unverified third-party external account within a specified timeframe. For example, {'3': 5000, '1': 500} means within the last 3 days, the user cannot send more than $5,000 from their account, and within the last day, the user cannot send more than $500 from their account.
wire – The maximum amount the user can send via wire within a specified timeframe. For example {'1': 1000, '10': 7000} means within the last day, the user cannot send more than $1,000 from their account, and within the last 10 days, the user cannot send more than $7,000 from their account.