Faster Payments Service growing

Government inspectors have recently won back £125,000 in unpaid wages for agency workers

The Faster Payments Service has processed more than 180 million payments worth just under £70 billion since it was first launched a year ago.

Payment group CHAPS said the volume of transactions made using the service peaked on March 2, when five million payments worth more than £1 billion were processed during a single day.

The service, which has been gradually rolled out by the banks since it was first launched a year ago, enables payments to be made on the same day, rather than taking three working days as was previously the case.

CHAPS said it expected to continue to see a growth in the volume of payments handled by the system as banks completed the roll-out of the service to their customers.

But the group said fewer than half of all standing order payments were currently being made through the FPS, despite it previously hoping to have the majority of them processed through it by the end of last year.

More than half of all credit card accounts can also be paid through the service, with four major card companies offering the facility and others due to do so in the near future.

People can find out if they can use the service to pay bills and make transfers by entering the sort code to which the payment is being made at www.canipayfaster.co.uk.

But research carried out for CHAPS found that there were low levels of awareness of the service among consumers. Just over half of people said they had heard of the FPS, 46% of whom thought they had made a payment using it.

David McFarlane, CHAPS company manager, said: "Our research shows that some UK customers still aren't aware that the new Faster Payments Service exists, while some are not sure whether they've used it.

"In part this may be because the roll-out across the industry has been gradual but also because different banks have communicated their new service in different ways. We'd encourage any customer for whom speed is important, and who isn't sure they can make faster payments to check with their bank."