Part IVVolume 4Chapters 34–44

Moving Money Without Cards

Batch against real time. Bacs, Faster Payments, CHAPS, SEPA, SWIFT and UPI, and why each of them exists.

11 chapters91,310 wordsabout 7 hours reading

Part IV chapters

Batch Against Real Time

You will be able to explain why a £2,400 salary lands on Thursday while a £248,000 house completion lands before lunch, without reaching for "one system…

8,355 words/36 min read 35

Bacs and the Three-Day Cycle

You will be able to say what happens on each of the three Bacs days, and name the 22:30 deadline that decides which cycle a file belongs to.

8,485 words/37 min read 36

The Mandate

You will be able to say what a Direct Debit Instruction legally is, and why it is an authority given to the service user rather than a contract with the…

8,356 words/36 min read 37

Faster Payments

You will be able to explain why a payment that reaches the plumber's account in one second does not move a penny between the two banks until Monday.

7,637 words/33 min read 38

CHAPS and RTGS

You will be able to explain why a conveyancer waits for CHAPS rather than sending a Faster Payment, even though Faster Payments is quicker and free.

8,102 words/35 min read 39

Addressing: Sort Codes, IBANs and Confirmation of Payee

You will be able to explain why a payment to a valid account in somebody else's name arrives without a single system in the chain failing.

8,482 words/37 min read 40

SEPA

You will be able to explain why there is no SEPA computer and no SEPA clearing house, and say what Europe built instead.

8,285 words/36 min read 41

SWIFT and Correspondent Banking

You will be able to explain why SWIFT has never moved a penny, and say precisely what it does move instead.

8,380 words/36 min read 42

UPI

You will be able to explain why NPCI never holds a rupee of Meera's forty and yet determines where every one of them goes.

7,867 words/34 min read 43

Instant Rails Elsewhere

You will be able to explain why Brazil, the United States and the euro area reached three different outcomes from the same forty-year-old technology.

8,335 words/36 min read 44

Open Banking

You will be able to explain why open banking is not a payment system, and name the rail that actually carried the £340.

9,026 words/39 min read