What is a Faster Payment?

Faster Payments is an initiative introduced in 2008 and operated by payments authority Pay UK. It allows funds to be transferred rapidly and securely between UK bank accounts at any time.

How do Faster Payments work?

Businesses can make Faster Payments in several ways, including via mobile banking, internet banking, telephone banking, in-branch and by using payment platforms.

How can businesses benefit from Faster Payments?

Faster Payments help businesses by providing a quicker and more convenient solution for moving money. The scheme’s primary goal is to reduce the time – from initiation to receipt of the funds – that it takes to complete a payment.

What types of businesses can use Faster Payments?

Any UK business requiring domestic disbursement of funds (and international companies looking to send money within the UK) can use Faster Payments.

Are Faster Payments free?

No, there are fees involved in using Faster Payments for businesses. The fee is completely different for each business and depends on different factors such as industry and volume of payments.

How long do Faster Payments take?

Faster Payments take a matter of seconds. Provided the beneficiary’s bank is also a direct participant of the Faster Payments Scheme, the money will be received almost instantly. In rare cases, Faster Payments may take up to two hours.

Do Faster Payments have a transaction limit?

Faster Payments have an individual transaction limit of £250,000.

Can Faster Payments be reversed?

No, Faster Payments cannot be reversed or cancelled.

Which banks use Faster Payments?

The Faster Payments Scheme states that 99.99% of UK bank accounts can accept Faster Payments. Non-bank payment platforms, such as Equals Money, can also use the scheme.

Important service update - Wirecard Card Solutions Ltd

Latest update : 15:00 GMT Tuesday 30th June

CARDS SERVICES ARE BACK!

We’re delighted to announce that following the temporary suspension of Wirecard’s regulated activities by the FCA, the small number of Equals Spend cards affected by this issue are now back up and running as normal.

The FCA lifted their restrictions in the early hours of this morning and the reason for the delay before customers could use their cards again was because we were waiting for Mastercard to resume normal activities for cards affected by this situation.

The vast majority of our Equals Spend cards, including those ordered by new customers, are not issued with Wirecard and as such were not affected by this issue. However, a small number of our Equals Spend customers are still using FairFX cards starting with 5116 and were impacted.

If you have a card starting with 5116 and still have questions about what happened or the impact on your account, please refer to the FAQs below or get in touch with our team at [email protected] or 0207 778 9302.

Our team has been working tirelessly around the clock to get you back up and running and we are thrilled that we’ve now achieved this.

Thank you again for your patience.

FAQS

What happened?

On Friday 26th June, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) temporarily suspended our card issuer – Wirecard Card Solutions Ltd operations, and as a result a small number of our Equals Spend customers were unable to use their cards. In the early hours of this morning, following their investigation, the FCA announced that it would restore Wirecard’s ability to operate its payments and issuing services, allowing all customers who use Wirecard’s services to resume card operations. You can read more on the FCA’s most recent announcement here.

All Equals Spend cards starting with 5116 are now back up and running.

The reason for the delay between the FCA’s announcement this morning and customers being able to use their cards again, was because we were waiting for Mastercard to resume normal activities for cards affected by this situation.

Why didn’t you tell us sooner?

Unfortunately we weren’t warned of this in advance. The action was taken by the FCA on Friday and we weren’t given any notice. We’ve worked continuously with them since then to get you back up and running and are delighted to have now achieved this.

How do we know this won’t happen again?

We have been offering financial services since 2007 and in that time, we have not experienced anything like these past few days with Wirecard.

The security of our customers’ funds remains of the utmost importance to us and, as we have continuously said since the FCA’s initial announcement on Friday, your funds have been safely held in safeguarded accounts by Barclays Bank Plc. as per the FCA regulations. This meant that they are, and always were secure, but access to them was temporarily blocked by the FCA.

We do however, understand that you may still be worried about using cards issued by Wirecard. If this is the case, please feel free to contact us directly a member of our team will explain the options available to you.

Sincerely,

The Equals team

Important service update - Wirecard Card Solutions Ltd.

FAQS