Faster Payments

[2] Nine banks and one building society, accounting for about 95% of payments traffic, initially committed to using the service; as of May 2018[update] there were 21 direct participants.

No retail bank currently charges personal customers for this service (with non-guaranteed transfer time), nor, as of 2018[update], was there any sign that this would change.

Among its recommendations was primary legislation to establish an independent payment systems commission (PayCom) in place of existing, privately controlled interbank arrangements.

[15] Initially the banking industry was consulted by the government on further steps and progress in payment services monitored by the Competition Commission and the Office of Fair Trading (OFT).

By May 2003, while the OFT was able to report modest improvements, such as changes to BACS and the governance of APACS, some competition concerns remained[16] and, in December 2003, the Treasury announced the OFT would take on an enhanced role in relation to payment systems, for a period of four years to resolve outstanding competition problems in advance of any legislation[17] – essentially self-regulation.

[18] In May 2005 the task force announced that an agreement had been reached to reduce clearing times for phone, Internet and standing order payments.

In October 2005 the contract to provide the central infrastructure for this new service was awarded by APACS to Immediate Payments Limited, a joint venture company set up by Voca and LINK who have since merged to form Vocalink.

Towards the end of 2011, Faster Payments Scheme Limited (a member-based organisation) was set up to separate out the day-to-day operations and management of the service from CHAPS.

[27] Following the initial launch of the central infrastructure, work was planned to provide a direct corporate access channel, and the first such payment was made in July 2009.