Mobile Payments

The Payments Council’s mobile payments project will make paying by mobile possible for everyone.

The new service, which will be launched  in spring 2014, will enable secure payments to be made 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. Eight financial institutions - representing 90% of UK current accounts - have already committed to offering the new service from spring next year, with discussions continuing for more institutions to join.

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. 

Shortly before launch, participating financial institutions will invite customers to register via their online banking service, mobile app or other approved method to provide their mobile phone number and confirm which account they want to link it to. More details about the industry-wide registration timeframe and precise launch date will be announced in due course.

This final phase of the mobile payments project follows the on-time completion in December 2012 of the central database that enables banks to securely store their customers’ mobile phone numbers and link them to their account details. The Payments Council will also continue to test and enhance the capacity of the central database and work with the participating financial institutions to ensure the operation of the service is as easy as possible for customers. 

You can find out more detail about this project from our latest press release and a short video are available to watch below, from a press briefing in 2012, explaining how the new service will work: