I did set up a recurring payment from my credit union account. How is that different from ACH?
AutoPay is set up on the biller's site. The credit card company, or other biller, draws the payment from your checking account via ACH. Usually you can specify whether you want to pay the minimum payment, the statement balance, or some fixed amount not to exceed the outstanding balance. The amount paid varies depending on your credit card balance.
Recurring payments are set up in Bill Pay with the bank that holds your checking account. They can be paid either by ACH transfer or by a mailed check. When you add the payee, Bill Pay will tell you whether it's available for ACH; if not, they'll mail paper checks. It's generally a fixed amount.
A third option is E-Bills, which is also set up in Bill Pay on your checking account. When you add the payee to Bill Pay, it may tell you that the payee offers E-Bills. If you choose to accept E-Bills for the payee, the bill will be viewable on your Bill Pay account. Depending on your bank, you may also be able to set up automatic payments of the statement balance or minimum payment, similar to AutoPay on the credit card site, but pushed by the payer instead of being pulled by the payee.
This appears when you go to the "Make Credit Card Payment" and "Select Account" and "Add Account".
This can be for a "scheduled" payment, maybe not auto-pay but it does ask for Bank routing and account numbers.
Wouldn't this be an ACH transfer?
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Yes, most likely, but if it's a 1-time payment, it's not AutoPay.
As I understand it, anytime money is moved between financial institutions, and you're not using a wire or a 3rd-party service like Zelle, it's an ACH transfer (although I'm not quite sure whether that includes E-checks, and paper checks converted by the bank to E-checks.)