Elavon, the merchant services business at U.S. Bank, announced it has secured access to the national real-time payments platform in the UK. Elavon’s merchants will now be able to receive their processed volume more quickly and perhaps more importantly, any day of the week:
Payments provider Elavon, a unit of US Bancorp, has secured direct access to the UK’s Faster Payments scheme.
Through Faster Payments, merchants can receive funds to their UK bank accounts round-the-clock and in real-time. The amount Elavon can process per transaction has been capped at £250,000 ($316,850).
Elavon UK managing director Colin Close said: “The value in offering 24/7 funding up to £250,000 in near real-time will be exciting to our customers who need to optimise their revenue streams with speed, efficiency and security.
“This capability will help us differentiate our value as a payments provider to merchants in the UK.”
The Faster Payments service could earlier be accessed only by banks and building societies.
Around two years ago, non-bank payment service providers (PSPs) secured Bank of England’s green light to apply for a settlement account in the Real-Time Gross Settlement system. This enabled non-bank PSPs to gain access to the UK’s payment systems such as Faster Payments.
What to watch for next is if there is a fee merchants will need to pay for faster deposits as this service is rolled out. In the U.S., merchants using Square or Pay Pal have the option of receiving merchant deposits into their checking accounts “instantly” if they agree to a 1% fee. It will also be interesting to see if Elavon brings this service to the U.S. That could be a nice enticement to encourage merchants to bring their deposit accounts to U.S. Bank.
Overview by Sarah Grotta, Director, Debit and Alternative Products Advisory Service at Mercator Advisory Group