By Julian Goldsmith, 2 January 2009 14:36
NEWS
December was a bumper month for the Faster Payments Service (FPS).
According to payments industry association Apacs, 3.9 million FPS payments were made on 1 December 2008 - a new daily record for the service.
Cheat Sheets
♦ Faster Payments
♦ Basel II
♦ MiFID
♦ Sarbanes-Oxley
FPS, which was launched at the end of May 2008, ensures standing orders, phone or internet payments appear in the recipient's account from as soon as two hours after the payment has been made.
In the first six months of operation, 63 million payments worth £26bn were processed through FPS, according to Apacs.
While two-thirds of all phone and internet payments are now processed through the service, less than half of standing orders go through FPS, the organisation found.
The service is run the clearing company Chaps, over an infrastructure provided by payments processing organisation VocaLink. FPS was supported at launch by thirteen founding banks, including Barclays, Citi, HBOS, HSBC and Loyds TSB, with other financial services institutions since coming on board.
Comments
There are 2 comments. Join the discussion
1. Also available in white...
There's no doubt that FPS is a godsend for getting money where it should be (although Paypal has been doing it for years!) but why is that I can transfer money from my HSBC Business account to my Lloyds personal account almost immediately... BUT the other way round, it takes 3 days?
C'mon guys, sort it out. It's bad enough jumping thru your hoops now, stop making it a pedantic exercise please...
2. Adrian Stafford-Jones
Better late than never – Faster Payments finally gets support
It may be perceived generally that Faster Payments have taken a while to be implemented but in actual fact this process ran incredibly smoothly. This was a brand new initiative; therefore it was imperative for best practice to be implemented through every stage. The roll out of the new scheme has now set the precedent for future initiatives.
Finally the UK market is realising how important the Faster Payments initiative is for businesses, particularly during the credit crunch. It is quite unbelievable that industry as a whole has taken so long to recognise just how beneficial Faster Payments is; in terms of saving costs and time and easing cash flow, Faster Payments could possibly even save some SME’s from bankruptcy.
In line with the swift roll out of Faster Payments the first financial e-transaction software tool has just passed through the testing process and is now awaiting final approval. Now that Faster Payments are being fully embraced by the market, it could be the one vital element that makes 2009 brighter for businesses.