Glossary · UK
What is Faster Payments?
The UK payment system that moves most everyday bank transfers between accounts within seconds, up to a limit set by each bank.
Full Definition
Faster Payments is the UK banking system used for most everyday electronic transfers between current accounts, moving money typically within seconds and almost always within two hours, in contrast to the multi-day BACS cycle or the fee-based, high-value CHAPS system. Faster Payments covers the vast majority of one-off transfers a consumer makes -- paying a deposit to a landlord, splitting a bill, sending money to family, or paying a small supplier -- and is also the rail behind mobile payment services like Open Banking payments and some app-to-app transfers. Each bank sets its own maximum Faster Payments limit per transaction and per day (commonly somewhere between £10,000 and £1 million depending on the bank and account type), and unusually large or unusual transfers can be delayed or flagged for extra fraud checks even within the Faster Payments system. Because a Faster Payment, once sent, is very difficult to reverse, UK banks have introduced additional safeguards such as Confirmation of Payee (checking the name on the account matches before sending) to reduce authorised push payment fraud, where a customer is tricked into sending a genuine Faster Payment to a scammer.