PPS Direct Participant in Faster Payments Scheme

PPS, formerly PrePay Solutions, and subsidiary of Edenred, the everyday companion for people at work, has today announced its direct participation in Pay. UK’s Faster Payments Scheme, the service that enables UK domestic mobile, internet, telephone and standing order payments to move quickly and securely.

In conjunction, PPS also announces its new partnership with Form3, a leading provider of cloud-native API payments technology, which will provide the technical gateway for PPS to connect to the scheme and provide real-time payments for end users.

Accessing the Faster Payments Scheme via Form3’s fully managed payment technology service allows PPS to offer real-time payments for its fintech partners.

The news comes just as PPS is approved to provide Local Belgian and French International Bank Account Numbers (IBANs), with more Local IBAN and SEPA Instant Credit Transfer capabilities coming soon.

The service runs on the Faster Payments Scheme’s real-time payments infrastructure, operated by Pay.UK, the UK’s leading retail payments authority. The Faster Payments Scheme is a Financial Markets Infrastructure (FMI) providing UK bank, building society and non-bank payment service provider’s customers with real-time, 24×7, account-to-account funds transfers. Over 400 financial institutions use the Faster Payments System, making it available to the vast majority of current account holders in the UK.

"We are delighted to welcome PPS on board as our newest direct participant"

Aoife Hurley, Head of Strategic Partnerships, PPS, said: “Becoming a member of Pay.UK’s Faster Payments Scheme and partnering with Form3 are crucial moves for PPS as we continue to support leading challenger banks and fintech players across the UK and Europe. It’s incredibly important to be able to offer best-in-class real-time payment solutions to our customers, particularly as consumers and businesses alike demand this key service. There are many players still offering “Batch based” Faster Payments which offer a poor customer experience but our service is genuinely instant. I’m proud of how well PPS and Form3 have worked together to get our UK faster payment solution off the ground with Pay.UK. We have certainly got an exciting year ahead and I look forward to being able to reach more end users and grow transaction volumes with our enhanced digital banking products.”

Adam Moulson, CCO, Form3, added: “We were chosen to become a partner to PPS due to our advanced technology, reliability, scalability and ability to address the speed of the ever-growing fintech market. To date, we have successfully collaborated by efficiently testing, integrating and migrating PPS’ platform to connect to the Faster Payments Schemes central infrastructure. This has enabled us to get to where we are today, providing the company with an improved working range of banking tools and putting PPS on a level playing field with some of the markets biggest names.”

Matthew Hunt, Chief Operating Officer, Pay.UK said:
“Gaining direct access to our Faster Payments Scheme allows payment service providers of all shapes and sizes to offer their customers the benefit of real-time payments on a 24/7 basis. We are delighted to welcome PPS on board as our newest direct participant, further demonstrating Pay.UK’s success in levelling the playing field on access, running a resilient payment system and helping us to enable a vibrant UK economy.”