Faster payments plan slows down

The UK Faster Payments programme has been delayed due to testing of the system taking longer than first anticipated.

The programme is aimed at allowing bank customers to complete payments made online or on the phone, as well as standing orders, more quickly than at present.

The service was initially pencilled in to launch in November this year but it emerged during the testing programme that there would be issues with completing on time.

silicon.com Financial Services

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A spokesman for UK payment trade association, Apacs - which is involved in the project - told silicon.com: "It's not common sense to launch it if we don't have 100 per cent confidence in the reliability of it.

"We'd rather delay it a few months than launch it in November and risk it going wrong on the first day. That would be a disaster."

He added: "There's nothing actually wrong with the design of the system."

Apacs will announce a revised launch date next month but said it will be sometime next year.

Paul Smee, Apacs chief executive, said there can be no room for error when launching a system which forms part of the UK's economic infrastructure.

Online, phone and standing order payments account for eight per cent of automated payments made in the UK according to Apacs.

The newly created payment organisation VocaLink and 13 UK financial services organisations have been working together on the project through the joint-venture company, Immediate Payments.

The 13 financial organisations - which account for more than 95 per cent of all payments made in the UK - are: Abbey, Alliance & Leicester, Barclays, Citibank, Co-operative Bank, Northern Bank, HBOS, HSBC, Lloyds TSB, National Australia Group, Nationwide Building Society, Northern Rock and Royal Bank of Scotland Group.