Tesco Bank joins faster Payments Scheme

Tesco Bank customers can now send and receive payments in real-time, 24 hours a day after becoming a direct member of the Faster Payments Scheme.

By joining the scheme (which is run by Pay.UK), Tesco Bank customers will benefit from a simple, smart, and secure payment process that enables them to transfer money, pay a bill, or make a credit card repayment almost instantaneously.

This follows the launch of Tesco Bank’s new Pay by Bank service in September 2020. Tesco Bank was the first UK bank to introduce this service, enabling over 2.5 million credit card customers to manage their money more easily by paying their credit card balance directly from their current account. Enabled by Mastercard’s Open Banking Connect™ service, Pay by Bank has now handled more than one million transactions, totalling over £400m, since launch.

Both Faster Payments and Pay by Bank are also now built into Tesco Clubcard Pay+ – an innovative first for the UK market that gives shoppers a new way to pay, save and pick up Clubcard points. The introduction of Faster Payments means that customers can top up their Tesco Clubcard Pay+ account and see their funds appear straight away, even while they are in-store doing their shopping.

Tesco Bank has a strong track record in using Open Banking to develop products that meets the needs of Tesco customers, and membership of the Faster Payments Scheme will support and enhance the bank’s future work in this area.

Commenting on what the Faster Payments Scheme means for customers, Chris Henderson, Tesco Bank’s Head of Payments, said “Whether it’s topping up Tesco Clubcard Pay +, sending money to a friend, paying a local business or making a payment on your credit card, the real-time speed of the transaction will give Tesco customers greater control over how they manage their money. The opportunities delivered by Open Banking are helping us to innovate and to make banking easier for Tesco customers.”