Faster Payments – Commercial clients

Bankline
The Faster Payments Service launched on Bankline in June 2008. Clients were informed via a broadcast message informing them of the new service.

The BACS payment option has been removed and has been replaced with a new Standard Domestic Payment option.  When you enter the date you want the payment to arrive and the value of the payment, Bankline will confirm the date you will be debited, the date that your available balance will be checked and the date the payment will arrive with the beneficiary, as well as the type of payment that will be made.

There are three new payment types in Bankline in addition to BACS:

Immediate payment (IPAY)
Clients are able to send and receive ‘near real time’ low value payments (under £10,000) between participating banks cheaply. Payments keyed before 11.45 pm are processed as same day payments in near real time.  The process from initiating a payment to receiving a response as to whether it has been received/rejected by the receiving bank will take seconds.  This is extremely useful if you need to send a payment quickly, need certainty that a payment has been irrevocably received or need to send payments on non-working days. Immediate payments cannot be amended, cancelled or recalled once submitted.

Next day payment (NPAY) and Future Dated Payments (FPAY)
You can make next day payments right up until 11.59 pm for the same price as BACS payments. Payments keyed by this time will be sent by 7.30 pm the next day, assuming funds are available. They can be set up for any day of the year, including weekends and bank holidays.

Next day and future dated payments cannot be recalled and can only be amended or cancelled on the day before they are committed.

BACS payment (if not eligible to go faster)
When payments are not eligible to be sent as Faster Payments they will be sent as BACS payments.  These cannot be sent on non working days and the cut off time for BACS payments is 6.15 pm, subject to available funds.

The payment types affected by the Faster Payments Service are shown below and have new cut-off times.

Payment Type	When payment will be made	Purpose	Method of instruction	Cut off times for inputting payments
Immediate Payment (IPAY)	24 hrs a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year	Low value, non critical payments (up to £10,000)	Bankline	11.45 pm for same day payment
Next Day Payment (NPAY)/ Future Dated Payment (FPAY)	24 hrs a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year	Low value, non urgent payments (up to £10,000)	Bankline	Payments can be keyed until 11.59 pm for next day and for D+2 payments
BACS	On working weekdays only	Non urgent payments over £10,000 and/or where beneficiary bank is not member of Faster Payments Service	Bankline	6.15pm on day 1 of the payment cycle, subject to available funds. If insufficient funds are available, payments entered after 4.30pm will be automatically rejected
Standing Order	On working weekdays only	Regular payments (up to £100,000)	Coutts BusinessLine standing orders can be viewed and cancelled on Bankline	Businessline is available from 8 am until 6 pm for setting up, amending and cancelling standing orders

Making Faster Payments at the weekend
Although the scheme operates on a ‘24 hrs a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year basis, the payment value dates on Bankline default to working weekdays. If you want to make a payment for a value date that is a weekend and/or bank holiday, you need to ensure that your administrator has amended the payment preferences within Bankline to allow standard domestic payments to arrive on any calendar day. The default date for the payments can then simply be overkeyed.

Standing Orders and Direct Debits.
Standing orders between banks will continue to be processed on working days only but payments between banks that are members of the Faster Payments Service will be  processed as same day faster payments. Once a standing order has been sent, the payment is irrevocable and cannot be recalled. The last time at which you can cancel a standing order is 6.00pm the working weekday before the payment is due to be made. Direct Debits are not affected by the Faster Payments Service.

Faster Payments on Bankline statements
For outgoing payments, each Faster Payment is given a unique payment identification number and this is displayed with a multi-line narrative that appears on the Bankline Statement screen as well as on statements.

The first two lines of the narrative have not changed. The third and fourth lines signify that this is a Faster Payment (FP), the date of the transaction, a two digit code relating to the type of payment and the unique reference number relating to the payment (known as a Faster Payment ID – or FPID).

Credit entries from other banks will appear on the Bankline Statement screen immediately described as ‘Faster Payment’, but more detailed narrative regarding the transaction will not be available until the system updates at 6.30pm These credit entries will bear the short code BAC on your Coutts bank statement.


Tariff for Faster Payments

Payment Type	Fee
Immediate payment (IPAY)	£3.00
Next day payment (NPAY)	25p
Future dated payment (FPAY)	25p
BACS payment	25p

Full details of our commercial tariff can be found here