Ten UK credit unions tap Engage for Faster Payments Service
Ten UK-based credit unions have selected Engage’s bulk Faster Payments Service (FPS) as they look to significantly reduce payment processing times for their members.
Ten UK credit unions have partnered with Engage for faster payments
The company’s collaboration with the credit unions to deliver its FPS offering is projected to boost payment speeds for nearly 100,000 credit union members.
Other traditional payment systems, like BACS or CHAPS, typically take around three to five days to complete a payment for a credit union. This could be either money arriving into an account via an employer or money leaving an account in loans or accessed savings.
To speed up this process, the ten UK-based credit unions, which include Knowsley Credit Union, Chesterfield and North East Derbyshire Credit Union and Kingdom Community Bank, will aim to utilise Engage’s FPS offering to send money to their members via the bulk payment option built into the platform’s dashboard.
‘In minutes’
Sofia Dogan, Kingdom Community Bank’s chief executive, says the Engage FPS works via “a simple online portal and we simply upload our payment file and payments are sent to member accounts in minutes”.
According to Dogan, the costs associated with this process “are over 50% less than our bank was preparing to charge us and our members can now benefit from receiving payments quicker into their account”.
The Engage digital account is supported by a digital mobile app and contactless Visa debit card. It comes with budgeting tools for account holders and a cashback reward system used at various different UK retailers.
“Instant payments is a capability that most bank account holders take for granted when it comes to paying bills or moving money,” comments Stephen Hope, partnerships development manager at Engage.
“By offering bulk FPS, community finance providers and credit unions that need to make multiple money transfers can improve customer satisfaction by bringing payments to real-time, removing three-day wait times for funds,” he continues.
Engage is the community banking division of the European embedded finance platform Solaris. Since 2010, it has partnered with over 150 of the UK’s 250+ credit unions to help deliver faster payments and financial inclusion.
To date, the platform has issued over 250,000 debit cards and accounts to credit union and community members unable to access mainstream banking services.
