Payment rails in numbers

Issue 535 | 29 September 2023

Payment rails in numbers

In this ninth round up of retail payments in 2023, for the 12 months to the end of August 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 (Bacs) are 2% and 7% respectively with growth in the volume and value for the UK’s real time gross settlement system now at 3% and 6% respectively.

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Source: Pay.UK

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Faster Payments

In the 12 months to the end of August 2023:

• Single Immediate Payment volumes have increased by 19% (12 months to July 20%)

• Total Faster Payment volumes have increased by 14% (12 months to July 15%)

• Single Immediate Payment values have increased by 25% (12 months to July 26%)

• Total Faster Payment values have increased by 21% (12 months to July 23%)

Faster Payments volumes continue to be bolstered by the switch from analogue to digital payments, reinforced due to the pandemic and also by the growing importance of Open Banking initiated Account to Account (A2A) payments.

Continued growth in Faster Payments is expected from Open Banking A2A payments and payments initiated by overlay services such as Request to Pay and Variable Recurring payments. The growth is also likely to be bolstered through the introduction of new Faster Payment types (or flavours) as part of version 1.0 of the planned New Payments Architecture (NPA) and, perhaps, through a future planned migration of Bacs Direct Credit payments into the NPA.

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Bacs Direct Debit and Direct Credit

In the 12 months to the end of August 2023:

• Bacs Direct Credit volumes have increased by 3% (12 months to July increased by 3%)

• Bacs Direct Debit volumes have increased by 2% (12 months to July increased by 2%)

• Total Bacs volumes have increased by 2% (12 months to July increased by 3%)

• Bacs Direct Credit values have increased by 6% (12 months to July increased by 6%)

• Bacs Direct Debit values have increased by 8% (12 months to July increased by 8%)

• Total Bacs values have increased by 7% (12 months to July increased by 7%)