Wednesday 16th January, 2013

The Payments Council plan to the launch a new mobile payments service in spring 2014, to help mobile payments to become mainstream. The new service will enable consumers to make secure payments directly to or from an account without the need to disclose the sort code and account number, by simply using a mobile phone number as a proxy.

Barclays, Cumberland Building Society, HSBC Bank, Danske Bank, Lloyds Banking Group, Metro Bank PLC, RBS plc and Santander represent 90% of UK current accounts between them - have already committed to offering the new service during the spring of 2014.

While there are existing ways to pay using a mobile, the collaborative Payments Council project marks the first service with the potential to link up every bank account in the country with a mobile number.

Adrian Kamellard, Chief Executive of the Payments Council, said: “The mobile payments project is a fantastic example of the unique role the Payments Council can play in delivering far-reaching, innovative improvements for customers. This new service will offer a simple, secure way to split a bill for dinner, receive money from a friend or pay a tradesman without needing to remember or share account details.”

Over 5,000 consumers participated in Payments Council research which revealed that the service is likely to prove most popular with smartphone users, who accounted for two thirds (67%) of those surveyed. One in three smartphone users said they were either definitely or extremely likely to sign up to the new service at launch.

The consumer research also highlighted the importance of the security of mobile payments. The Payments Council service will ensure that, as a minimum, a passcode or similar security feature will be required to authorise payments.

The new mobile payments service will move money directly between accounts using tried and tested payment schemes: the Faster Payments service, which processed more than 800 million online and phone banking payments in 2012; and the LINK network, which processed 3.1 billion real-time ATM transactions last year.