At long last, the banks are introducing a faster payment system for phone and internet banking. I’ve often wondered how they can continue to get away with claiming it takes three days for money to transfer between banks/accounts – and the truth is, they really couldn’t continue to get away with it.

So they’re now gradually phasing in this new Faster Payments Service – which will (eventually) mean that you can do transfers on the same day, rather than waiting three days. Money leaves your account immediately, and is in the recipient bank account later that day.

Initially it’s just being trialled on smaller amounts – I think the average ceiling is about £20 at first – before it ends up going up to the maximum transaction value of £10,000 in a few months time. If you want to check whether your payment recipient can handle faster payments, you can check the sort-code on this site.

I wonder how this will affect the entire BACS and CHAPS system over time? It’ll be nice to be able to have same-day transfers without paying the extra £30+ for a CHAPS payment, that’s for sure.