Faster Payments celebrates first birthday

Today the Faster Payments Service, launched one year ago on 27th May 2008 celebrates its first birthday.  By the end of its first 365 days and nights of uninterrupted service it will have successfully processed over 180 million payments with a total value of just under £70 billion; with a peak day on 2nd March of 5 million payments valuing over £1 billion*.  Since the launch banks have been gradually rolling out the new service to customers resulting in ever increasing volumes and values of payments being exchanged and settled.

We will continue to see growth in volumes as banks complete the roll-out of their service to customers; already each day phone and internet payment volumes through the Faster Payments Service are comparable to the daily average of those type of payments made through Bacs in 2007.  Less than half of all standing order payments are, however, being made through the Service.  More than half of all credit card accounts are now payable through the Service with four major credit card companies offering the facility to customers so that they can pay their bill that way; meaning that the payment reaches the credit card account much quicker than previously.  Other credit card companies are undertaking the technical work to ensure that they can offer this service to their customers too.

During the year, the sort code checker facility (www.canipayfaster.co.uk) has registered nearly 600,000 hits with customers checking whether they can send money to specific sort codes using the Service.  However industry research*** shows that awareness levels have some way to go with just over half (55%) of consumers having heard of Faster Payments. Of these, just under half (46%) think that they have ever made a Faster Payment, resulting in an overall figure of 25% of all consumers who believe that they have used the new Service.  

David McFarlane, CHAPS Company Manager said:

"Our research shows that some UK customers still aren’t aware that the new Faster Payments Service exists whilst some are not sure whether they’ve used it. In part this may be because the rollout across the industry has been gradual but also because different banks have communicated their new service in different ways. We’d encourage any customer for whom speed is important, and who isn’t sure they can make Faster Payments to check with their bank. Alternatively www.canipayfaster.co.uk provides a neat way of checking whether the recipient bank sort codes have upgraded yet to the new service.

"The central infrastructure of the Faster Payments Service was groundbreaking; we dared to deliver a payments system that would give banks the ability to process payments 24 hours a day seven days a week and on a scale that hadn’t been tried anywhere else before. Therefore it’s no surprise that now the technology has a year’s worth of successful and continuous service under its belt we’re getting enquiries from all around the world from countries looking to follow our lead.”

ENDS

For further information contact the Press Office on 020 7711 6340

*peak day volumes are likely to occur at the start of every month as this is when the vast majority of customer standing order payments are processed.

** The last five days of May 2009 are estimated figures.

*** industry research is based on a survey conducted by TNS interviewing a representative sample of 2,000 adults across the UK between 15 - 19 April 2009.

CHAPS Clearing Company manages same-day electronic payment schemes; including CHAPS Sterling and Faster Payments. The thirteen founding members of the Faster Payments Scheme are: Abbey, Alliance & Leicester (both part of the Santander Group), Bank of Scotland ( part of Lloyds Banking Group), Barclays, Citi, Clydesdale Bank (incorporating Yorkshire Bank both part of National Australia Group), Co-operative Bank, Danske Bank (Northern Bank)  HSBC, Lloyds TSB, Nationwide Building Society, Northern Rock, Royal Bank of Scotland (including NatWest and Ulster Bank).  VocaLink, the international payment transaction specialist, provides the infrastructure for the Faster Payments Service.

There is a maximum limit placed on the value of each payment sent through the Faster Payments Service, with the maximum value for internet and phone payments set at £10,000 and standing orders to £100,000.  Banks sending funds through the Service are free to adopt lower limits as part of the service they offer to their own customers.

The logo for the Faster Payments Service and CHAPS is available to media on request from press@ukpayments.org.uk