Published Fri, 30 May 2008 14:43:00 +0000
The UK banking industry has launched new Faster Payments allowing
payments to be sent immediately even between banks. The new system is
being phased in over the coming weeks by the major banks. Payments
usually arrive within minutes but can take several hours.

We are happy to accept payment using the new Faster Payment system.
Just as with 3 day BACS payments, it is essential that you quote the
correct payment reference (e.g. A1234A) when making your payments.

If you need to pay us before shipping goods, you will need to tell us
the payment is made using the new system so that we can check as this
is not (yet) automated during the day. However, this will allow goods
to be shipped on the same day as ordering if your payment arrives early
enough in the day.

One small point that is important if using the new system is that we
consider payments to have arrived on the date as shown on our bank
statement. If making payment late at night or over a weekend then that
will be the next banking day. This is relevant if you have left it to
the last moment to pay your bill as the statement date is what counts
for late payment penalties. We have updated the terms and conditions to
clarify this point.

See http://www.fastpayments.co.uk/ for more details on Faster Payments.
See http://aaisp.blogspot.com/2008/05/faster-payments.html

Interesting if the banks are making the faster system optional, which you 
have to request specially rather than just making all payments faster. Faster 
payments do not disadvantage the payer at all - the money disappears from the 
account on the day of the transfer regardless - but it helps the payee who 
gets paid sooner.

Presumably the banks are hoping most people won't bother to specify faster 
payment - why should the payer care? - so they can go on pocketing three 
days' interest while telling everyone they have cleaned up their act.

Alfred E Neuman wrote:
> Interesting if the banks are making the faster system optional, which 
> you have to request specially rather than just making all payments 
> faster. Faster payments do not disadvantage the payer at all - the money 
> disappears from the account on the day of the transfer regardless - but 
> it helps the payee who gets paid sooner.
> 
> Presumably the banks are hoping most people won't bother to specify 
> faster payment - why should the payer care? - so they can go on 
> pocketing three days' interest while telling everyone they have cleaned 
> up their act.

Barclays seem to just have one payment option and they send by either 
method as appropriate. This is, AFAIK, the norm.

Alfred E Neuman wrote:
> Interesting if the banks are making the faster system optional, which 
> you have to request specially rather than just making all payments 
> faster. 

It seems banks aren't really giving people the option.

A payment will go through faster payments if

1) The receiving account can accept it
2) It is less than 10K pounds.[1]

Otherwise the payment will go through the old BACS system and take 3 days.

It does vary from bank to bank though.   Smile/co-op aren't going to 
have them working until early 2009.

First Direct seem to be working live this week for small amounts, and 
will be fully up to speed in a few weeks.



[1] - Except some banks are running with lower maximum amounts while 
they makesure all the systems are working correctly.


Tim

On Fri, 30 May 2008 17:39:43 +0100, Adrian Kennard wrote:

> Barclays seem to just have one payment option and they send by either 
> method as appropriate. This is, AFAIK, the norm.

Does the sender know which method has been used? There is a site to check 
if a sort code can receive Faster Payments but does that mean that FP will 
be used?

There is a distinct lack of real concrete information about FP, all the 
banks seem to be "doing their own thing".

-- 
Cheers
Dave.

Adrian Kennard wrote:
> 
> Barclays seem to just have one payment option and they send by either 
> method as appropriate. This is, AFAIK, the norm.

What is meant by "as appropriate"? From the point of view of the payee, 
surely fast payment is always appropriate, and from the point of view of the 
bank, never. Look who is deciding ...

On May 30, 10:14 pm, Alfred E Neuman <whatmewo...@nospam.invalid>
wrote:
> Adrian Kennard wrote:
>
> > Barclays seem to just have one payment option and they send by either
> > method as appropriate. This is, AFAIK, the norm.
>
> What is meant by "as appropriate"? From the point of view of the payee,
> surely fast payment is always appropriate, and from the point of view of the
> bank, never. Look who is deciding ...

You do like spotting conspiracies don't you ;)

Not all the banks currently support the faster payment service yet and
even those that do might only support making payments and not
receiving them. So "as appropriate" simply means that if the bank you
are sending it do will accept faster payment payments it will be sent
the same day and if they don't it has to fall back to BACs to start
with.

Natwest do the same, I sent a payment the other day and it was sent
the same day without me having to ask for it to be.

It makes perfect sense to phase something like this in slowly. Can you
imagine the mess if all banks used it for all payments on day one and
something went badly wrong with the system ?

If they had done that I expect you would be hear claiming it was a
plan to put us off the whole faster payments idea and stick with
BACS ;)

Andy Norman wrote:
> On May 30, 10:14 pm, Alfred E Neuman <whatmewo...@nospam.invalid>
> wrote:
>>
>>What is meant by "as appropriate"? From the point of view of the payee,
>>surely fast payment is always appropriate, and from the point of view of the
>>bank, never. Look who is deciding ...
> 
> You do like spotting conspiracies don't you ;)

I wouldn't call it anything as grand (or as paranoid) as a conspiracy - it is 
just normal business practice. If doing something makes more money for the 
company, you do it. If doing something makes less money for the company, you 
don't do it. If it makes no difference, you take the line of least 
resistance, i.e. business as usual.