Britain’s real-time payment service Faster Payments has rolled out a new Trust Service to make access to payments systems more cost-effective for challenger banks and new entrants.
The new service will be provided by UTSP Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Faster Payments Scheme.
To ensure that the Trust Service is trusted by all existing Scheme participants, it has been built to industry standards and duly approved.
Faster Payments chief executive Craig Tillotson said: “The launch of our new, world-class Trust Service is a big step forward for the industry. Having learned from our service users that existing solutions did not meet their needs, we set about building the new Trust Service to make access to both Faster Payments and Bacs easier and more cost-effective.”
Faster Payments noted that credentials issued by it can also be used to support access to Bacs Payment Schemes Limited (Bacs), the organisation behind Direct Debit in the UK.
In May, regulators decided to merge the three payment systems – Bacs Payment Schemes, Cheque and Credit Clearing Company and the Faster Payments Scheme –into a single entity to boost competition in the payments and banking industry.
Already four companies are using the service – three are Faster Payments participants and three are also using the Trust Service to support Bacs membership. Four new firms are slated to become users of the Trust Service before the end of this year.
