Faster Payments = Damp Squib??

DavieBoy_3

Now that the Faster Payments scheme has been in operation for a while (6 months or so), what's the verdict?

For me it's pretty much a damp squib. My own bank imposes a £250 limit on transfers using the Faster Payment scheme so for the transactions where it's most valuable (to me) I'm stuck with the old 3-5 working days scam of old.

HumanEnergy

The damp squib part is the fact that it's taking so long to roll out and most banks don't seem to want to enable their accounts to take advantage of it.

When you have two accounts that can send / receive faster payments however, it's great. There's nothing like being told my wages have been paid and being able to look online and see them in my bank account two minutes later Instant transfers between accounts for free, what's not to like?

Once it become standard on most accounts, we'll wonder how we did without it. No more lost interest with money in limbo between two accounts during a transfer! Hopefully every bank will be up and running with it in the not too distant future.

Blenheim_2

Damp squib here - my sort code can't even receive faster payments yet, let alone send them.

bryanb

Transferred my Icesave compensation from HSBC to Coventry BS, took 1hr - Great!

97trophy

HSBC & RBS = fantastic service, very happy. Other accounts very disappointed. So mixed blessings here.

ShelfStacker_3

Headsup, seems like the thread to do it: starting the 27th, HSBC are rolling out FPS for their credit cards. Payments will, according to the thing I read this morning, be credited and your card's available balance will reflect them as soon as they receive the payment.

Bit disappointed with Barclaycard though, they said they support FPS, still takes 2 days for a payment to go through though...

jd87

I regularly have to make payments between NatWest, Barclays, Halifax, HSBC and Lloyds TSB accounts, and I am very pleased with Faster Payments which seems to work (almost) every time.

Milarky

Happily I have several accounts for which I can take advantage of Faster Payments. The ones that don't I just have to accept (for now)

However, at the risk of sounding like the DM, someone is responsible for the uneveness of service. In 2005 the OFT (for, and on behalf of, 'us') announced an 'agreement' with APACS to bring in Faster Payments (although it wasn't branded then) in about 30 months. It actually arrived in about 36 months..

..Meanwhile OFT's 'agreement' did not open up the payments system to the consumer because the banks (who use Faster Payments as corporate customers) are the gatekeepers of that service.

This is a far cry from the government's heady optimism in 2000 - when it accepted a report which recommended legislation to make payment systems independent from the banks which had an effective monopoly..

There will be no hiding place for anyone seeking to take advantage of customers dependent on them to carry out essential daily banking transactions such as drawing cash, cashing cheques, transferring money or using standing orders and direct debits to pay bills

[A likely story!]Instead they pushed it into the long grass and gave it to the OFT - which interpreted this to do a deal on yet more self-regulation - and left it all up to APACS

..In other words the 'revolution' in payments services has really just been a 'full circle' exercise - and it's only taken the better part of tens years to take us back to where we started.

Lokolo

Only £250 woo... good for you.

What you must think is, they don't want money laundering to go ahead. If people are transferring £10k's worth at a time and it goes across instantly there could be a lot of foul play going about! And by the time they realise it, the money is long gone.

Thats why the limits are there.

heppy23

The banks are dragging their heels big time.

I get paid from a co-op account into a halifax and then money goes to a yorkshire building society and an abbey account and egg & virgin credit cards.

The only one that seems to go through as a faster payment is halifax to egg but that seems to take a day even though it's called a faster payment.

olly300

bryanb wrote: »

Transferred my Icesave compensation from HSBC to Coventry BS, took 1hr - Great!

Does help that Coventry BS uses a HSBC sort code.;)