By Tim Ferguson, 15 August 2007 14:44
NEWS
The introduction of a service that will allow bank customers to make payments faster has been put back to May 2008 to allow enough time for the technology to be fully tested.
The Faster Payments system will allow bank customers to make payments in near real-time with end-to-end payments completed in a matter of hours.
It will also reduce the time for standing orders to be processed from three days to one day, provided this takes place on banking business days.
The system was originally intended to launch in November this year but the 13 financial organisations involved in the project require more time to carry out testing around accessing the central system.
A spokesman from payment trade association Apacs, which is overseeing the project, told silicon.com: "The priority really for the industry was to agree the earliest day we could launch a reliable service."
silicon.com Financial Services
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He said: "Obviously because it's going to be a system which is going to be massively important, it needs to be right and it needs to be reliable 100 per cent. There can't be any room for error.
"The industry isn't pointing its finger at any one bank or any set of banks. It was a mixture of factors."
The Office of Fair Trading has expressed its disappointment at the delay as consumers will have to wait for the improved service.
But the OFT said the stability of the UK payments systems is of "paramount importance" and should not be put at risk.
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 are: Abbey, Alliance & Leicester, Barclays, Citibank, Co-operative Bank, HBOS, HSBC, Lloyds TSB, National Australia Group, Nationwide Building Society, Northern Bank, Northern Rock and Royal Bank of Scotland Group.
Comments
There are 6 comments. Join the discussion
1. Christopher Quinton
Astonishing; truly incredible! In South Africa, as least 25 years ago, they had an interbank instant payments system. I still think the banks and building societies here enjoy making big bucks by sitting on squillions of our money for three days upwards, so they can earn interest.
Time they threw away their quill pens and start moving up to the 21st Century by bypassing the 19th and 20th alltogether.
2. Graham Coles
So, perhaps it will be next year that this country begins to catch up with the rest of the world.
In the meantime, enjoy the rest of the dark ages while the banks take 3 or 4 days to recognize a payment.
3. Martin Lukes
Let's pretend it's an IT issue. Let's pretend that whether or not it's a "banking business day" makes any difffernece of any kind whatsoever to an IT system.
Transfering money does not take three days, nor one day. The only reason it "does" is because it suits the banks to use your money for that time. When you pay for something on a debit card, amazingly the system can process the transaction in seconds. It is not a fundamental natural law of IT that this is the only way it works quickly.
This is not investigative reporting. It reads more like a press release from banks.
4. Roy Corneloues
"It will also reduce the time for standing orders to be processed from three days to one day, provided this takes place on banking business days."
So in a world of 24x7x365 you can only transfer money on a "business banking day"
5. Stephen Matthews
In 1986 I wrote an article for Computer Weekly (which was published) saying that the Big Bang changeover used Cobol because, being anything but a Real Time language, it could put off real-time banking for at least a decade. Seems I was only out by 50% (although I did say "at least")
6. Clive Crocker
You can use PayPal already