Bottomline launches Direct FPS Service for payments
Nigel Savory, Bottomline
Bottomline Technologies has launched a new payments gateway solution, Direct FPS Service.
The company says the service aims to help challenger banks gain access to the UK payments market, as well as enable any organisation wishing to make “quick” payments to their customers or suppliers.
It works under the New Access Model, designed to allow “easier entry” for banking participants to Faster Payments Service (FPS). The latter was launched nearly eight years ago, built and maintained by VocaLink
Direct FPS Service is an addition to Bottomline’s existing suite of aggregated payments services providing access to Bacs, Swift, Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) and a number of international clearing houses.
Bottomline says recent enhancements to the Faster Payment Service have seen an increasing number of companies streamlining their payment processes for a range of transaction types.
These include urgent but low-value payments, “just-in-time” supplier payments, direct remittances, refunds (thus replacing cheques), cash management payments, weekly payroll runs and staff expenses.
The single transaction value limit has been increased from £100,000 to £250,000 and Bottomline says “yet higher values are planned in the near future”.
Nigel Savory, MD of Bottomline’s global business solutions, says this higher limit “provides new options for the industry and our customers to route their more expensive and urgent payments” through FPS.
Bottomline adds that FPS averages over 110 million payments each month, and recently passed the “significant milestone” of five billion payments.
