UK Residents cards in issue Source: UK Finance Card transactions by UK cardholders both in the UK and overseas: There were 2.06 billion debit card transactions in January, 5 per cent more than in January 2023. The total spend of £64.6 billion was 0.8 per cent lower than January 2023. There were 347.9 million credit... Continue Reading →
Time to Rethink Collecting Bank Details
The headed paper method Gavin Lawrence over at Movimo has been thinking about collecting bank details….. Invoice fraud and procurement fraud has been around for ages, I remember first receiving a false update to supplier bank details by fax, so I suspect that was at least 20 years ago. When we are being set up... Continue Reading →
Conscience payments to the RSPB
Conscience payments Quicksilver and Quince use their cheque book to make conscience payments to the RSPB. https://youtu.be/zEp-bigGqYI?si=DW-5sVHOTCMnenKZ Meet Quicksilver and Quince, two extraordinarily pampered cats. The felines receive 5 pence pocket money a week from their doting owner, and further monetary contributions on Saint's days. Their wealth has grown to the point where they now... Continue Reading →
Cross border payments: Hitting G20 targets
Cross border payments: Hitting G20 targets for speed, cost and transparency How much progress is the industry and your financial institution making towards reaching the cross-border payment goals outlined by the G20 roadmap?2027 is closer than we think to achieve improvements in speed, cost, accessibility, and transparency of payments across borders. Join Bottomline, Visa, and... Continue Reading →
Unlocking the essentials: RTGS and CHAPS Renewal
Unlocking the essentials: RTGS and CHAPS Renewal Today's Payments:Unpacked is brought to you by Bottomline. Last week it was my privilege to attend the six monthly Bank of England RTGS (Real Time Gross Settlement) Renewal Programme industry update - it was great to meet a number of Payments:Unpacked readers at the event! Although the key focus on... Continue Reading →
ISO20022: Reckoning with change in the global payments system
ISO20022: Reckoning with change in the global payments system While ISO 20022 is not new, it will soon become the de facto standard for sending financial messages between financial institutions and businesses. The drive and industry development behind upgrading payment infrastructures, instant payments and cross-border payment capabilities make adopting ISO20022 paramount in its importance and... Continue Reading →
Finding the north star: 5 points for the National Payments Vision
Jack Wilson, Policy and Research VP at Truelayer has been sharing his thoughts on the National Payments Vision. Finding the north star: 5 points for the National Payments Vision The UK Government is currently developing a National Payments Vision to provide clarity on its ambition for UK payments. At TrueLayer, we believe the Payments Vision should set... Continue Reading →
Real time delays
(More) Real time delays After writing about delays for the UK’s proposed New Payment Architecture (NPA) earlier this week in “New Payments Architecture: It's been a while” news arrives from Canada. Payments Canada’s Real-Time Rail (RTR) payments system is part of a multi-year, multi-system payments modernisation initiative. RTR will allow Canadians to initiate payments and... Continue Reading →
CIP Expands Payment Portfolio Through Strategic Partnership with Paynt
CIP, a leading payment solution provider, is excited to announce its latest strategic partnership with Paynt. This collaboration marks a significant milestone in expanding CIP's payment product portfolio, promising enhanced services not only for small and medium-sized enterprises but also for merchants on a global scale. In today's rapidly evolving market, merchants require competitive pricing,... Continue Reading →
Your IBAN. Your Cryptos
Fintech Deblock choose Numeral to manage SEPA payments like a bank Deblock, the first current account that accepts both euros and cryptocurrencies, has chosen Numeral, the payment technology provider, to manage its SEPA payments. This collaboration allows Deblock to operate as a SEPA participant right from the launch of its product, thereby offering IBANs in... Continue Reading →
Open Finance – the next step after open banking
Open Finance - the next step after open banking In the dynamic world of fintech, open banking has risen as an innovative solution, reshaping how consumers interact with financial services. According to Statista, the number of open banking users worldwide was expected to grow by an average of 50% per year between 2020 and 2024,... Continue Reading →
Best Practice ISO 20022 Migration: Strategies and Insights for Financial Institutions
Best Practice ISO 20022 Migration: Strategies and Insights for Financial Institutions With the ISO 20022 Co-existence period underway since March 2023, extending until November 2025, and 19% of global cross-border payments traffic on Swift already utilising ISO 20022 as of December 2023, the momentum towards this universal messaging standard is palpable. While the technical migration... Continue Reading →
SurePay joins Temenos Exchange to expand access to Verification of Payee and Confirmation of Payee
SurePay’s APIs are now available via the Temenos Exchange partner ecosystem making Verification of Payee (EU) and Confirmation of Payee (UK) easier for financial institutions. SurePay today (11 April 2024) announced that the SurePay solutions will be available via the cloud-based Temenos Exchange partner ecosystem. With impending regulatory changes from the UK Payment Systems Regulator... Continue Reading →
The Confirmation of Payee (CoP) clock is ticking…
The clock is ticking… With less than one year to go to the deadline set by the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR), all Payment Service Providers (PSPs) must think seriously about how they’re going to implement a Confirmation of Payee (CoP) system that conforms with regulatory requirements. As we move towards the October 2024 deadline, there’s... Continue Reading →
Payment Systems Regulator publishes new annual plan
Payment Systems Regulator publishes new annual plan The Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) have published their annual plan for 2024/25, setting out their key aims, activities and costs for the next twelve months. Announcing The Plan https://youtu.be/I_QHxxQXhgc?si=hPEBccqjnh0IPB94 Annual Plan The annual plan highlights that this year, the third of a five-year Strategy, will be an important one for consolidating... Continue Reading →
Ten Facts About Cash
Ten Facts About Cash Cash has been in steady decline in recent years as many people have turned to different ways of paying. Back in 2006, cash accounted for 62% of payments but it’s predicted that by 2031 this will be down to just 6%. Data published on 12 January 2024 by LINK, the UK’s... Continue Reading →
Payments Tracker
Payments Tracker In this third round up for retail payments in 2024, for the month of February 2024, we continue to see double digit growth in the volume and value of Faster payments and double digit decline in paper clearing. The growth in volume and value for the UK's bulk clearing scheme were 1% and... Continue Reading →
UPI – The Untold Story
UPI (Unified Payments Interface) has revolutionised mobile payments in India, and is now being adopted by countries around the world. Today, more than 300 million Indians use UPI, but how many are aware of the journey that led to UPI? https://youtu.be/xLw-YaYAhPU
Don’t lose your heart to a deepfake
Don’t lose your heart to a deepfake A few weeks ago Sehrish Alikhan over at Finextra published an excellent article encouraging us to dump our fraudster over the Valentine period. With the long weekend approaching grab a coffee and take a couple of minutes to read Sehrish’s article - here’s some key outtakes: Loneliness makes anyone vulnerable to romance scams... Continue Reading →
CoP Leader SurePay Takes Confirmation of Payee From Local To Global With Swift’s Payment Pre-Validation Service
As an official Swift partner, SurePay now provides Confirmation of Payee to its customers, allowing an easy pre-validation of payment data on a Domestic, Pan-European and Global scale. SurePay, the leading provider of the IBAN-Name Check, Confirmation of Payee (CoP) and Verification of Payee (VoP) to over 100 banks, has announced the expansion of its... Continue Reading →
Insights for Innovation: Five Global Instant Payment Facts To Shape the Future of Faster Payments in the UK
Insights for Innovation: Five Global Instant Payment Facts To Shape the Future of Faster Payments in the UK The UK’s Faster Payments Scheme in 2024 is not that different from the version launched 16 years ago. The much anticipated new vision for payments in the UK will undoubtably have the Faster Payments rails at the... Continue Reading →
Building a National Vision and Strategy for Payments
Building a National Vision and Strategy for Payments In this blog we focus on the Future of Payments Review’s key recommendation for a National Payments Vision and Strategy, HM Treasury’sresponse to this recommendation together with a look at other examples of national vision and strategy for payments published by other countries. We also look at the UK’s first... Continue Reading →
The Rise of Pay by Bank
New Research From Brite Payments Shines a Light on the Rise of Pay by Bank – And Highlights Consumer Willingness to Embrace New Payment Methods Nearly three quarters (73%) of survey respondents are familiar with Pay by Bank, according to new data from Brite Payments and YouGov Speed and security were cited by nearly half... Continue Reading →
Update on the National Payments Vision
Update on the National Payments Vision Today (8 March 2024) HMT Treasury have published an update on the National Payments Vision - here's four key takeaways and the Treasury statement in full. Four key takeaways 1: HMT is not undertaking a wholesale consultation process. 2: HMT is engaging with industry through trade associations and membership bodies... Continue Reading →
SurePay Introduces Bulk Check Functionality on UK Confirmation of Payee (CoP) Portal
SurePay Introduces Bulk Check Functionality on UK Confirmation of Payee (CoP) Portal SurePay, a leading provider of innovative financial security solutions, announces the launch of bulk check functionality on its UK Confirmation of Payee (CoP) portal. This new feature empowers corporations to effortlessly verify up to 10,000 records in Excel format, enhancing efficiency and security... Continue Reading →
OneID® partners with Confirmation of Payee services provider Surepay
OneID® partners with Confirmation of Payee services provider Surepay UK Finance reported over 116k incidents of Authorised Push Payment Fraud in the first half of 2023. This is a 22% increase compared to a similar period in 2022. The amount lost was £239.3 million. The need to protect businesses and individuals from malicious actors has... Continue Reading →
Payments Tracker
In this second round up for retail payments in 2024, for the month of January 2024, we continue to see double digit growth in the volume and value of Faster payments and double digit decline in paper clearing. The growth in volume and value for the UK's bulk clearing scheme were 1% and 6% respectively... Continue Reading →
EU mandatory regulation is on the money
EU mandatory regulation is on the money A Point of View Guest Blog from John Bertrand. EU mandatory regulations for instant credit transfers within the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) are right on the money. The key requirement is verification of payee. Today this is absent in the UK, apart from ten mandated banks plus a... Continue Reading →
Swift payments: send and receive local and cross-border payments to more than 200 countries from a single API
Payment technology provider Numeral launches Swift payments: send and receive local and cross-border payments to more than 200 countries from a single API. Numeral, the payment technology provider, today announces the support of Swift payments, enabling companies and financial institutions to automate cross-border payments with their partner banks to more than 200 countries, in addition... Continue Reading →
Ten Facts About Cash
Ten Facts About Cash Cash has been in steady decline in recent years as many people have turned to different ways of paying. Back in 2006, cash accounted for 62% of payments but it’s predicted that by 2031 this will be down to just 6%. Data published on 12 January 2024 by LINK, the UK’s... Continue Reading →
Confirmation of Payee solution for PSPs – It pays to get started now
Payment Landscape In recent years, the payments industry has undergone significant transformation, driven by technological advances and evolving consumer demands. Among these changes, the ability to facilitate Faster Payments (FPS) has emerged as a cornerstone for modern transactional payments. This evolution is reflected in the substantial growth of FPS. In December 2023, Faster Payments processed... Continue Reading →
ISO 20022
One Year On: Transitioning to ISO 20022 Native Webinar: EMEA - 20th March 3 PM UK Time (or APAC - 21st March at 3 PM Singapore Time) The ISO 20022 Co-existence period started in March 2023 and will now run until November 2025. Major market infrastructures such as Target, Bank of England CHAPs, and MEPS... Continue Reading →
The UK’s First Electronic Cheque Book
The UK's First Electronic Cheque Book Making payments and managing our finances on our iPhone and Android devices has become the norm - almost every bank in the UK now provides an app that increasingly meets all our payment and financial needs meaning that the need to visit a physical bank branch or an ATM... Continue Reading →
Payments Tracker
In this round up for retail payments for the 12 months to the end of December 2023, we continue to see double digit growth in the volume and value of Faster payments and double digit decline in paper clearing. The growth in volume and value for the UK's bulk clearing scheme were 1% and 6%... Continue Reading →
Aldwick Toll Bridge, a place where only cash will do
Aldwick Toll Bridge, a place where only cash will do In the UK just 14% of payments are cash based. We visit Aldwick Toll Bridge, North Yorkshire - a place where only cash will do. https://youtu.be/Udxk2FMYoIE?si=TM6VR-mw6U7JfDgB
Card Payment Tracker
UK Residents cards in issue Source: UK Finance Card transactions by UK cardholders both in the UK and overseas: There were 2.23 billion debit card transactions in October, 2 per cent more than in October 2022. The total spend of £67.2 billion was 0.1 per cent higher than October 2022. There were 377.7 million credit... Continue Reading →
The convenience of traditional contactless payments with the benefits of open banking payments
The convenience of traditional contactless payments with the benefits of open banking payments In this guest blog Mike Kelly at Overlay introduces TapToAuth - a new, intuitive payment solution that marries the convenience of traditional contactless payments with the benefits of open banking payments. Although Mike has agreed to feature as a guest blog this... Continue Reading →
Current account winners and losers
The Current Account Switch Service hits 10 million total switches following busiest quarter since launch. In the latest Current Account Switch Service (CASS) dashboard, published by Pay.UK, we find out how many of us transferred our bank account in Q4 2023 and who the switching winners and losers were in Q3 2023. November saw the highest total number... Continue Reading →
Cash in a digital age: Five facts
Cash in a digital age: Five facts For over 17 years LINK’s Consumer Council has brought the voice of consumers into LINK’s decision making. As millions of people continue to rely on cash, the Council has scrutinised LINK’s work to protect the footprint of free ATMs, supported its efforts to ensure free access to cash in deprived... Continue Reading →
Ten Facts About Cash
Ten Facts About Cash Cash has been in steady decline in recent years as many people have turned to different ways of paying. Back in 2006, cash accounted for 62% of payments. It’s predicted that by 2031 this will be down to just 6%. New data published on 12 January 2024 by LINK, the UK’s... Continue Reading →
The required tech stack for Bacs and FPS indirect participants
The required tech stack for Bacs and FPS indirect participants Processing Bacs and FPS payments as an indirect participant involves complex and strictly codified operations. Manually managing these workflows is not realistic. However, building the systems that automate them can be a daunting project. In this article, we break down the tech stack required to process... Continue Reading →
Redefining the way to build payment operations with partner banks
Redefining the way to build payment operations with partner banks Northey Point is pleased to work with Numeral who are experts in enabling companies to send, receive, and reconcile SEPA, Bacs and FPS payments through their banks with a single API and modern dashboard. Numeral’s single API and central dashboard empower product and finance teams with... Continue Reading →
Where money comes from and where it is going
This article was previously published by The Paypers: Where money comes from and where it is going. Payments:Unpacked is grateful to both Dr. Michael Salmony and The Papers for providing permission to republish this article. How is money created and distributed? We all know that money is now largely digital, so the printing of notes... Continue Reading →
Operating as a Bacs and FPS indirect participant
Operating as a Bacs and FPS indirect participant When becoming regulated as a payment institution (PI) or electronic money institution (EMI), fintech companies have several options to access Bacs and FPS and send and receive Bacs and FPS payments on behalf of their customers. One of these options is to become a Bacs and FPS indirect... Continue Reading →
The One-Stop, Simple Approach to Confirmation of Payee (CoP) Implementation
The One-Stop, Simple Approach to Confirmation of Payee (CoP) Implementation The rise of APP fraud has led to the implementation of Confirmation of Payee (CoP) being mandated by UK regulators(PSR). If you’re a firm that has been told they need to implement CoP, you might be thinking, “well, now what?” Understand how SurePay’s cutting-edge technology... Continue Reading →
A historic benchmark in the world of heists
City of London, Bearer Bond Robbery - AKA Operation Starling The City bearer bonds robbery, renowned for its scale and complexities, remains a historic benchmark in the world of heists – a tale where greed, crime, and investigation intersected in a captivating narrative that echoed through the corridors of the financial world. https://youtu.be/yEPVV-bOPYE?si=KjAgKQIIvNPECwP7
Payments Tracker
In this twelfth round up of retail payments in 2023, for the 12 months to the end of November 2023, we continue to see double digit growth in the volume and value of Faster payments and double digit decline in paper clearing. The growth in volume and value for the UK's bulk clearing scheme were... Continue Reading →
Outpacing Elle: The quest for faster and immediate payments
Dining out on acronyms We use abbreviations every day - in writing, texting, note-taking, talking and, of course, in payments. There are a few different categories of abbreviations, and acronyms is one of them. When you shorten a phrase by using just the first letter of each word and then pronounce it as a new... Continue Reading →
Cash Tracker
Cash Tracker Cash has been in steady decline in recent years as many people have turned to different ways of paying. Back in 2006, cash accounted for 62% of payments. It’s predicted that by 2031 this will be down to just 6%. But that’s still billions of payments, and the people who rely on cash... Continue Reading →
APP scams reimbursement
APP scams reimbursement Earlier today (19 December 2023) the Payment System Regulator (PSR) issued Policy Statement 23/4 “Fighting authorised push payment scams: final decision.” The document outlines the PSR’s final position on, and more information on APP scam reimbursement including: The consumer standard of caution. The level of the excess. The maximum level of reimbursement. The start... Continue Reading →