Faster payments
Faster Payments
When sending payments through our API, Faster Payments are initiated via the POST /{vn}/Payments/FPS endpoint, and confirmation of settlement is provided to you via the Transaction Settled webhook. You can send individual or bulk payments.
ClearBank accounts support inbound and outbound Faster Payments. You can send and receive Faster Payments of up to £1,000,000. Faster Payments are not subject to a cut-off time.
Sometimes you will need to return a faster payment, for example when:
- the beneficiary name does not match that of the account number,
- the account has been closed or transferred,
- the beneficiary has deceased.
To return one single immediate payment, use the POST /v3/payments/fps/return endpoint.
Payments originating overseas need to be sent using a separate endpoint: POST /v2/payments/fps/singlepayment.
Validation
Each Faster Payment is validated against these rules:
Element | Type | Validation | Description |
---|---|---|---|
name | string | maxLength: 140 minLength: 1 pattern: ^[a-zA-Z0-9\/\-?:().,’+\s#=!"%&*<>;{@\r\n]*$ | Also known as Account Holder Name This the creditor's name. If max length exceeds 35 characters, this will be truncated before sending to scheme. |
reference | string | maxLength: 35 minLength: 0 pattern: ^[a-zA-Z0-9\/\-?:().,’+\s#=!"%&*<>;{@\r\n]*$ | Also known as the Payment Reference This is the payment reference under remittance information. If the max length exceeds 18 characters, this will be truncated before sending to scheme. |
Pattern: Alphanumeric (uppercase and lowercase) and special characters*.
*Special characters: / (forward slash), - (hyphen), ? (question mark), : (colon), ( (left parenthesis), ) (right parenthesis), . (full stop), , (comma), ’ (right single quote), + (plus sign), (blank space), # (hash), = (equals), ! (exclamation mark), ” (right double quote), % (percentage), & (ampersand), * (asterisk), < (less than), > (greater than), ; (semicolon), { (left curly bracket), @ (commercial at), CrLf (carriage return line feed).
This endpoint uses the endToEndIdentification field as a duplicate check to ensure the request is idempotent.
Abusive message filtering
To protect payment recipients from harm and abuse, outbound payments are subject to screening to check for profanities.
The screening checks the Reference
string of the RemittanceInformation
object. If any term in this string matches a term on the profanity list, it will be removed and the field will be blank when the payment reaches the beneficiary.
References will be removed if they match terms found in (but not limited to) the Pay.UK profanities list that can be found on the Reference Documents page of the Knowledge Centre. This can be accessed by signing in to the ClearBank Portal.
The result of the screening can be found in the SupplementaryData
object of the Transaction Settled webhook as follows:
Abusive message screening result | Supplementary Data value |
---|---|
Pass (no match) | AbusiveMessageScreeningResult:Pass |
Fail (match) | AbusiveMessageScreeningResult:Fail AbusiveMessageScreeningIdentifiers:paymentInstruction.creditTransfer.remittanceInformation.structured.creditorReferenceInformation.reference |
APP Scam protection
In line with legislation to prevent Authorised Push Payment (APP) scams, payments sent via the Faster Payments scheme may be in scope for APP scam reimbursement, allowing for the recovery of 50% of any consumer reimbursement (up to the claim limit) from the receiving Payment Service Provider (PSP). Further details are available on Pay.UK's website.
Only payments sent via scheme are in scope of APP scam reimbursement, however, when you initiate a payment and we identify that the recipient account is held by a ClearBank client, the payment method is updated to internal transfer by default.
To ensure you have control over the payment method and, by extension, your level of liability for reimbursement claims, the POST /v3/payments/fps endpoint contains a enforceSendToScheme Boolean field.
- When set to true: the payment will be processed (and billed for) as a Faster Payment regardless of whether it is eligible to be processed as an internal transfer.
- When set to false or not included: there will be no change to the existing behaviour.