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The Faster Payments Service

Update on the availability of the Faster Payments Service

  • Sending Faster Payments: If you wish to make a fund transfer or bill payment (Single Immediate Payment) then the maximum you can send is £250.
  • If you wish to make a Standing Order then the maximum you can send is £2,000.
  • We may adjust the sending payment limits for the Faster Payments Service at any time.
  • Receiving Faster Payments: Find out if another sort code can receive faster payments.
  • The Co-operative Bank will accept faster payments up to Scheme Limits. However, some Banks may have lower limits in place.

Key features of the Faster Payments Service

  • The Faster Payments Service will be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for immediate payments, other than during periods of essential maintenance.
  • Faster Payments will only be transferred between participating financial institutions and in most cases, funds will be available in the beneficiary’s account within two hours.

Limitations of the Faster Payments Service

  • Payments are made almost immediately, so they can not be stopped and the sending Bank is unable to retrieve the funds. It is therefore essential that you provide us with the correct sort code and account number of the bank to which you would like payment to be made. Please include any reference number(s) where applicable.
  • The Faster Payments Service will only operate in Sterling and is only available for payments to participating UK members.

What can I use the Faster Payments Service for?

  • You can use the Faster Payments Service to make either immediate or future dated transfers and bill payments, as well as standing orders. Standing order and future dated payments will only be processed on Monday to Friday excluding Bank Holidays. In most cases, the funds will be available within two hours.
  • The Faster Payments Service is only available on payments to accounts where the beneficiary bank is also a member of the Faster Payments Scheme.
  • Direct Debits are not part of the Faster Payments Service.

What do I need to do now?

  • Payment requests made in branch or over the phone or by written instruction
  • You do not need to do anything different. All eligible payments will automatically go via the Faster Payments Service once the beneficiary’s account becomes eligible to receive Faster Payments.
  • Payment requests made via The Co-operative Bank’s Financial Director or Business Internet Banking Service.
  • We will be contacting our Financial Director and Business Internet Banking Service Customers with further details when this service becomes available. Customers will have a choice to send payments via the Faster Payment Service or 3 days via BACS.

Charges

  • The charge for sending payments via the improved Faster Payments Service will be the same as for BACS.

Further information

  • Please continue to visit the website for regular updates.

There are circumstances which may prevent payments going via the Faster Payments Service, therefore payments can not be guaranteed to reach the recipient the same day in all cases. If your payment is time critical we would recommend using CHAPS (for which an ancillary charge would be levied).