Faster Payments 'suffering limited take-up'

04/06/2009

The Faster Payments service is still not processing many credit card bill payments.

Takeup of a new service which offers same-day bank transactions has been limited, an investigation has revealed.

Around £45 billion of transfers have been processed through older, slower methods since Faster Payments was launched last year, the BBC reports.

These existing systems take two or three days to clear transactions.

A total of 12 banks and a building society originally signed up for the service in May 2008.

However, seven of these are still only offering partial Faster Payments coverage at best - and a majority of firms are not processing credit card bill payments on the new system at all.

This could in turn result in debt-hit Brits suffering rate hikes and a lower credit score if they pay their bills close to deadline day.

Sandra Quinn, director of communications at payments service Apacs, told the broadcaster: "Our main target in the first year was to make sure that it worked. It's robust. It works everyday."

She added that take-up of the service would increase in future.

Tags; Debt Management and Banking, Young Family Finances, Credit Card Lifestyle,

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