Faster Payments enablement guide - NatWest

Faster Payments – Mandatory reach to be
completed by the end of 2011
Background
From 1 January 2012, the UK’s Payment Services Regulations require all qualifying payments between payment
service providers to arrive the next working day. To achieve compliance all sort codes which can receive Bacs
credits must be able to receive Faster Payments by the end of 2011.
The CHAPS Company, which operates the Faster Payments service, has mandated this with the backing of the
FSA and Bank of England. Progress will be monitored across the industry. NatWest is also reviewing its Faster
Payment limits to ensure that non-compliant payments can be sent as Faster Payments.
What you need to do
As a HOCA customer you have been identified as having a sort code (or sort codes) set up to receive Bacs credits
which is on the Industry list of sort codes which must become Faster Payments enabled before the end of
December 2011.
The Faster Payments service was launched in May 2008 and allows both consumers and businesses the ability to
make UK domestic credit payments in near real-time via Internet and Telephone banking services at any time, any
day of the year.
Decisions
This Faster Payments enablement guide contains all the information you need to help you decide when to receive
your Datalink* files.
When you have considered the changes required to your internal systems and processes, you will need to complete
and return the enclosed “Additional services/Amendment Form”.
Next steps
If you have any further questions not covered by this guide, please email: FPSwitchon@natwest.com
*Datalink will in the future be known as Bankline Direct due to the migration of Datalink services
onto Bankline Direct channels, but for the purpose of this document we will refer to it under the
generic name Datalink.
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