Faster Payments, the UK’s 24/7 real-time payment service, has launched a new Trust Service that will potentially cut the cost for challenger banks and others of obtaining the services that are essential to securely access the UK’s payments systems.
In order to be able to access customer-sensitive data needed to use Faster Payments, participants need to have the use of a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) Trust Service, which manages the digital certificates that are essential to keep customer information secure. Faster Payments created the service after it determined that the costs of the existing solutions created a barrier for some new entrants looking to join Faster Payments.
The new service, provided by UTSP Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Faster Payments Scheme, has been built to industry standards and approved so that it can be trusted by all existing Scheme participants. Credentials issued by Faster Payments can also be used to support access to Bacs Payment Schemes Limited (Bacs), the organisation behind Direct Debit in the UK.
Since the service launched in early May, four organisations are already using it – three are Faster Payments participants and three are also using the Trust Service to support Bacs membership. A further four new organisations are expected to become users of the Trust Service before the end of the year.
Independent research commissioned by Faster Payments predicts the size of the UK real-time payments market is likely to almost treble in the next few years, with annualised growth of 20% forecast, leading to 3.3 billion Faster Payments being sent in 2020 alone. The new Trust Service underlines Faster Payments’ commitment to level the playing field for access, promote competition and ensure the full, real-time 24/7 service is available as widely as possible to end users.
Craig Tillotson, Chief Executive of Faster Payments, 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. I am pleased to report that we have succeeded in doing just that and the new service is up and running and being used by Participants already.”