Fast Pay & ACH

The Payout using Fast Pay / ACH solution provides services to send funds from a Cobre Balance to external beneficiaries in Colombia using fast, near real-time payment rails.

Fast Pay / ACH Payouts are commonly used to disburse funds efficiently to bank accounts or other Cobre Balances, offering a reliable and scalable payout experience for businesses and platforms.

Difference between Fast Pay & ACH

Fast Pay is Cobre’s proprietary payout solution, built on a direct connection between bank accounts, enabling faster processing times.

ACH, on the other hand, is Colombia’s standard interbank transfer system.

One of the main differences between both rails lies in their service-level agreements (SLAs), particularly in the time required to reach the final status of a money movement. The routing between Fast Pay and ACH is determined automatically based on the beneficiary’s bank, as not all financial institutions support the Fast Pay solution. This routing behavior is not configurable by the client.

Supported counterparties

Payout via Fast Pay / ACH supports the following destination types in Colombia:

Destination Type	Counterparty Type	Rails
Checking Account	`cc`	Fast Pay / ACH
Saving Account	`ch`	Fast Pay / ACH
Electronic Deposit	`dp`	Fast Pay / ACH
Cobre Balance	`cobre_balance`	Fast Pay

To review which banks support Fast Pay and/or ACH, please refer to the following bank list.

Authorization Workflow (optional)

Checker Approval is an optional solution that can be used within the Payout flow. It triggers an authorization workflow before the transaction is sent to the payment network. While the approval is pending, the Money Movement remains in a pending_approval status until it is either approved or rejected. The approval process can be completed either through the Cobre Portal or programmatically via API.

Payout lifecycle

A Payout through Fast Pay or ACH follows a simple lifecycle:

1. Create a counterparty (beneficiary)
Create a counterparty with the beneficiary’s information.
This counterparty represents the destination of the Payout transaction.

2. Create a Money Movement
Create a Money Movement using:

The account_id from which the funds will be debited, used as the source_id.

The counterparty_id from the previous step as the destination_id

The metadata with a description

The external_id where you can use to send a reference from your system.

The amount provided in the smallest unit of the currency (e.g., 100.00 COP should be represented as 10000).

The checker_approval as true if you want use our authorization flow.

3. Money Movement is processed
Once created, the Money Movement starts in the initiated status.

If all validations pass, the status changes to processing. At this point, the transaction is sent through Fast Pay or ACH.

If an error occurs during validation or processing, the Money Movement transitions to the final failed status.

If the Money Movement is created with checker_approval = true, it first moves to the pending_approval status and will only transition to processing or canceled once the approval decision is made.

4. Funds are debited
Once the Money Movement transitions to the processing status, the funds are debited from the associated Cobre Balance.

5. Wait for the final outcome of the Money Movement.

If the Money Movement is completed, the beneficiary has successfully received the funds.

If the Money Movement is rejected, the funds are credited back to your Cobre Balance.

6. Receive status updates
Money Movement status changes are communicated via Webhooks.

Actions performed on a Money Movement (Payout)

🔑 Create

🔍 Retrieval

Description: Money Movement Creation.
What to expect after the action: Money Movement is created in Cobre.
📘 Learn more:

🔗 Create a Money Movement

Money Movement Idempotency

Money Movement creation supports idempotency.

Idempotency keys are valid for 24 hours.

How to Get Started

Before you begin, we recommend reviewing the following considerations.

Before using this API

You need a Cobre Balance in Colombia

To send funds using Fast Pay / ACH, you must have an active Cobre Balance account in Colombia with enough funds.

Create the beneficiary Counterparty

Before creating a Payout Money Movement, you must create a Counterparty with the beneficiary’s information, matching the selected destination type.

Define the Payout configuration

Decide the destination type, amount, and any required metadata needed to process the Payout.

Implement Webhooks to track payment status

To stay informed about the status of Payout transactions, we strongly recommend implementing Webhooks. Webhooks notify your system when a payment is initiated, processed, completed, or failed. Also subscribe to the required events to receive notifications about transaction debits and credits.

See Notifications for more details.

What to expect after using this API

Initiate the Payout

Once the Money Movement creation request is sent, it will be created with an initiated status.
Make sure your system is prepared to receive status updates as the Money Movement progresses through its lifecycle.

Track the transaction status

Monitor the Payout lifecycle using Webhooks or retrieval endpoints.

Funds are delivered to the beneficiary

When the Payout is successful, funds are credited to the beneficiary’s account and the Money Movement status is updated accordingly.

Fast Pay & ACH

Difference between Fast Pay & ACH#

Supported counterparties#

Authorization Workflow (optional)#

Payout lifecycle#

Actions performed on a Money Movement (Payout)#

Money Movement Idempotency#

How to Get Started#

Before using this API#

What to expect after using this API#