By Julian Goldsmith, 9 March 2009 14:23
NEWS
The Faster Payments Service (FPS) has seen £1bn of transactions processed in one day for the first time.
On 2 March, the service processed five million interbank payments to set the new daily record, according to payments association Apacs.
Cheat Sheets
♦ Faster Payments
♦ Basel II
♦ MiFID
♦ Sarbanes-Oxley
A spokeswoman for Apacs said by far the most common type of payment to go through the service was standing orders, accounting for four million of the transactions processed that day. Other payments processed by the service include online and phone payments.
Apacs said the spike in transactions is likely to be the result of the day being at the start of the month, a time when the majority of standing orders are pushed through.
The FPS was launched in May 2008 to speed up payments between participating banks so they can be cleared on the same day.
The FPS' previous daily record was set in December 2008 when four million payments to the value of £730m were processed.
Since the service began, it has processed more than 125 million payments with a value of £46bn.
Apacs forecasts the number of interbank online, phone and standing order payments made through the FPS will grow from 472 million in 2007 to 622 million in 2017.
The volume of payments going through the service has consistently grown month on month, with the only dip coming in December 2008 to January this year. According to Apacs figures, month on month volumes have nearly trebled since last July, to more than 18 million payments last month.
Comments
There is 1 comment. Join the discussion
1. 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.
Adrian Stafford-Jones
Managing Director
Albany Software