Double digit growth and decline

Issue 449 | 4 February 2023

Double digit growth and decline

In this first round¹ up of retail payments in 2023, which covers the 12 months to December 2022, double digit growth in Faster Payments and double digit decline in the paper (cheque) clearing continues - along with a steady state for the UK’s bulk clearing scheme (Bacs) and growth in the volume and value of the UK’s real time gross settlement system (CHAPS) remaining unchanged.

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Volume and Values (end December 2022)

Source: Pay.UK

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Cheques

In the 12 months to the end of December 2022:

• Cheque volumes have decreased by 14% (12 months to November 13%).

• Cheque values have decreased by 8% (12 months to November 7%).

Whilst Faster Payments is experiencing double digit value growth the paper cheque continues to suffer double digit decline – over the last twelve months the volumes of cheques processed has decreased by 14%.

Cheque volumes total just over 1% of the total volumes processed by Pay.UK’s schemes (Bacs and Faster Payments) and continued decline in this share is expected as actual volumes decrease and growth continues elsewhere, particularly with Faster Payments.

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Faster Payments

In the 12 months to the end of December 2022:

• Single Immediate Payment volumes have increased by 18% (12 months to November 18%)

• Total Faster Payment volumes have increased by 15% (12 months to November 16%)

• Single Immediate Payment values have increased by 28% (12 months to November 27%)

• Total Faster Payment values have increased by 25% (12 months to November 24%).

The meteoric rise in Faster Payments volumes continues bolstered by a switch from analogue to digital payments and the growing importance of Open Banking initiated Account to Account (A2A) payments.