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Modulr glossary

Faster Payments

Faster Payments is a UK-based real-time payment system that enables near-instant bank transfers, typically within seconds. It supports consumer, business, and interbank transactions, enhancing financial flexibility and reducing settlement times and is operated by Pay.UK. Modulr is a direct participant of the Faster Payments service, enabling our customers to process their payments securely and efficiently while we take on the regulatory and operational task of plugging into the payment schemes. This means we provide the same level of access to Faster Payments as a bank but underpinned by our next generation technology. The Faster Payments Service supports payments made and received in seconds, on a 24x7x365 basis. The scheme value limit was increased to £1m as of February 2022 (from £250,000), and while most retail banks set lower limits than this internally, there is a degree of flexibility afforded and Modulr allows higher payments to be made.

Applications

E-commerce:

Reduces fraud in online card payments by verifying the cardholder's identity

Banking and fintech:

Helps issuers and payment providers comply with Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) requirements.

Advantages

  • Enhanced security: Reduces unauthorised transactions by verifying that the genuine account holder is authorising the payment
  • Fraud prevention: Helps reduce chargebacks related to fraud.

Challenges

  • User Experience: Additional authentication steps can cause friction and increase checkout abandonment
  • Implementation complexity: Requires integration with card schemes and issuer systems.

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