Banks agree to faster transfers
May 27, 2008
A new scheme to speed up cash transfers will be launched on 27 May.
The now means that money transferred between different banks over the phone or internet will no longer seem to disappear for up to four days. It is estimated £20m a year in interest was made from the delay last year.
The Faster Payments Service is being developed by 13 banks, although only a small number of payments will be quicker from the first day.
For many customers money seemingly disappeared for days when being transferred from a current account to a savings account in a different bank for example.
There were 124 million internet and phone payments in 2007. This number is expected to rise to 300 million in 10 years.
The various banks will gradually phase the scheme in so as not to overload the new system.
Some of the banks taking part are : Abbey, Alliance and Leicester, Barclays, Citi, Clydsdale and Yorkshire Banks, Co-operative Bank, HBOS, HSBC, Lloyds TSB, Nationwide, and Royal Bank of Scotland Group (including Natwest and Ulster Bank).
The banks have been testing the system with hundreds of penny payments.
Paul Smee, chief executive of the UK’s payments association Apacs said “The final part of this enormously complex project has been to test the new system in a live environment.”
Concerns have been raised about the systems security but Apacs say that although no system could promise 100% security the issue had been at the heart of developing the system.
www.abbey.com
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