Available payment schemes

This document provides information about the payment schemes supported by the Payments Hub ISO20022 API.

Faster Payments

The Faster Payments (FP) scheme is available for customers to move up to GBP 1M electronically to a UK bank account. There is no fee and customers make payments from their banking or savings accounts as normal.

The scheme supports both domestic payments between 2 UK bank accounts, and payments originated overseas (POO) where the sending bank is outside the UK and the recipient bank is in the UK.

For the scheme to be used, the recipient bank must also be able to accept Faster Payments. This can be established using the sort code checker on the Payments Council Website.

CHAPS

CHAPS allows customers to make urgent high-value electronic payments to UK sort codes. The funds arrive to the recipient on the same day, if submitted before 17.35 UK time. There is no limit on payment size.

Cross Border Payments

The Cross Border payments scheme is also called SWIFT. It allows ordering customers to send funds to a beneficiary, where the ordering customer and the beneficiary are in a different local or regional area (for example, from UK to USA).

To submit the payment, the ordering customer needs the beneficiary’s full name and account number (in IBAN or 18-digit CLABE format), and the Bank Identifier Code (BIC) of the beneficiary’s bank.

BACS

BACS allows customers to send transfers electronically within the UK. Transfers take 3 working days to reach the recipient.

This scheme is used for UK internal transfers where the recipient is unable to accept Faster Payments.

SEPA Credit Transfers

SEPA Credit Transfers (SCT) allow customers to make transfers in EUR between accounts in the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA). As of 2020, there were 36 members in SEPA, consisting of the 27 member states of the European Union, the 4 member states of the European Free Trade Association (Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland), and the UK.

The SCT transfers take a maximum 1 working day, with a cut-off time of 17.00 from Monday till Friday.

SEPA Instant Credit Transfers

SEPA Instant Credit Transfers (SCT Inst) provide a faster option to the traditional SCT. The SCT Inst transfers allow customers to move up to EUR 100,000 immediately (in less than 10 seconds).

TARGET2

TARGET2 allows Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) between EU banks. It’s owned and managed by Eurosystem and can only be used by central and commercial banks.

TARGET2 is the payment rail to be used for High Value Payments when a transfer needs to be done in real time and with immediate finality.

Since the creation of SCT Inst, the real-time feature has stopped being a differentiating factor for TARGET2: nevertheless, its immediate finality and no amount limit makes it the preferred payment method for big entrepreneurial transactions.

The TARGET2 working calendar is from 7.00 till 18.00 from Monday till Friday, where payments are subject to a cut-off time of 17.00. For example, if a payment is done on a Friday at 17.30, it isn’t posted in the beneficiary’s account until Monday. SCT Inst has a 24x7 business calendar, hence if a payment is done at 17.30, it’s posted in the beneficiary’s account 10 seconds later.