29,600 payments processed every minute overnight on Tuesday 2nd April in The United Kingdom.
Faster Payments has recorded its busiest period ever, following an end of tax year rush to move money and pay bills. In just six hours, from midnight on Tuesday 2nd April, 9.1 million standing orders were processed by the Scheme. The new peak is nearly 20% higher than the 7.7 million sent on the same day in 2012 and seven times more than the typical daily average of 1.3 million.
The huge number of standing orders processed on 2 April resulted from the two Easter bank holidays falling at the end of the month, which tends to be a common time for bills. The date also fell just in advance of the new tax year and coincided with the end of the quarter and financial year – all of which increase the volume of regular payments we send.
A further 5.3 million online and phone banking payments were sent after the banks closed on Thursday 28th March and before they reopened on Tuesday 2nd April, bringing the total number of bank holiday Faster Payments to 14.4 million.
The latest figures build on the astonishing growth of the service. Over 2.3 billion payments worth more than £1.3 trillion have been processed since Faster Payments launched in May 2008. This strong growth is expected to continue, with nearly 1 billion Faster Payments expected to be sent in 2013 alone.
Craig Tillotson, Managing Director of the Faster Payments Scheme said:
“Processing nearly 10 million payments seamlessly in one night is testament to the work done by banks, building societies, our technology providers and the Scheme itself to keep the country’s money moving – even when most of us are asleep in our beds. This growth in Faster Payments confirms we are becoming the preferred choice for moving money any time, simply, quickly and reliably.”