The types of Faster Payment
- Single immediate payment: a one-off transfer, usually in the recipient's account almost immediately, sometimes up to two hours later
- Forward-dated payment: a one-off transfer sent on a date the customer set in advance
- Standing order: a fixed amount to the same recipient on regular dates
- Direct corporate access: payments submitted by businesses, sent the same day
Pay.UK counted 5.55 billion Faster Payments worth £4.84 trillion in 2025.
How a Faster Payment works
The payer's provider sends the instruction to the central infrastructure, which passes it to the recipient's provider. That provider accepts or rejects the payment, and the answer returns within seconds. The payment is a push from the payer: once accepted, the payer's provider cannot simply pull it back.
Who connects to Faster Payments
Banks, building societies and payment firms join as direct participants or reach the system through one. For a UK fintech, Faster Payments is the default rail for moving money in and out of an account, and for paying customers out at any hour. Because a payment is immediate and hard to reverse, fraud controls and the check of the payee's name run before the money leaves.
Faster Payments, Bacs or CHAPS?
- Bacs
- Bulk files on a three-day cycle, for salaries and Direct Debits.
- CHAPS
- Same-day payments with no upper limit, settled one by one at the Bank of England on working days.
Where Faster Payments shows up in a platform
Modules that do the work
- Accounts & IBANsCustomer accounts with their own IBANs, on the partner bank and the rails you choose.
- PayoutsMoney out to bank accounts, cards and wallets, on the rail that fits each payment.
- Fraud & riskReal-time fraud scoring, limits and case management, with the risk engines you already trust.
- LedgerThe double-entry book of record behind every balance, fee and transfer.
Platforms that need it
Guides that go deeper
- EMI or payment institution licence in the UK, or launch under a partnerE-money or payments, authorised or small: what the FCA asks for in capital, safeguarding and people, how long it takes, and when an agent or banking partner is the faster route.
- How to launch a neobank without a banking licenceYour own e-money licence, an EMI's agent, a partner bank or a bank licence: how each route works, who holds the money, and what safeguarding and deposit protection cover.
Where it is written
The laws and standards this page's facts come from.
General information, not legal advice: what applies to you depends on your services and your market.