As you would expect, in our role as operator of vital payment systems, we have a keen focus on resilience and robustness.
A key pillar of this work is our third party assurance programme – that is, reviewing the effectiveness of third parties’ internal controls relating to these systems, and ensuring that levels of operational integrity and quality are maintained
Of course, all of those third parties involved in our payment systems and services have a natural incentive to operate resiliently, but it is right that we work closely with them on this.
Each year, our knowledgeable and experienced teams work across the likes of the Bacs Approved Bureau Scheme and the Cheque Printer Accreditation Scheme, plus much more.
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Bacs Accredited Facilities Management Provider
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The Bacs Accredited Facilities Management Provider is a service whereby an organisation will take responsibility for the collection or administration of Direct Debits on behalf of another organisation, not necessarily being a service user in its own right (facilities management client). A facilities management provider acts as a service user for those businesses that do not have their own service user number to collect or administer Direct Debits on their behalf. This enables businesses to access Direct Debit without requiring sponsorship into the Direct Debit Scheme by their bank.
Learn more about Bacs Accredited Facilities Management Provider.
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Bacs Approved Bureau Scheme
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The Bacs Approved Bureau Scheme undertakes regular inspections that assess the technical competence and operational integrity of Bacs approved bureaux.
Bacs inspectors review the appropriateness of the bureaux to ensure they meet the standards set by the scheme. All Bacs approved bureaux are listed on the Bacs Approved Bureaux Directory.
Over half of the organisations using the Bacs service make their Direct Debit and Bacs Direct Credit payment submissions through our approved bureaux rather than submitting directly to Bacs.
Learn more about the Bacs Approved Bureau Scheme.
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Bacs Approved Software Service
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Only software solutions that have passed a number of rigorous testing and approval processes are enabled to connect to Bacstel-IP for Bacs Payments and / or Secure-IP for Faster Payments. All Bacstel-IP and Secure-IP software are approved before they reach the marketplace, reassuring users that the software has surpassed set quality standards.
Learn more about the Bacs Approved Software Service.
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Bacs Training Accreditation Scheme
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The Bacs Training Accreditation Scheme is an accreditation service provided by Bacs to assess the relevance and quality of training course content and materials relating to Bacs services.
The staff of financial institutions, Direct Debit service users and other Bacs users, benefit from being able to identify those training courses providing high standards of content and delivery, to meet their respective needs.
Learn more about Bacs Training Accreditation Scheme.
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Cheque Printer Accreditation Scheme
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All cheques for use in the clearing process in Great Britain must be produced by accredited printers. This means there is much greater quality control in the paper, ink and the security features used in cheque production. The Cheque Printer Accreditation Scheme has helped reduce some types of cheque fraud, namely ‘fraudulent alteration’ and ‘counterfeit’
Learn more about the Cheque Printer Accreditation Scheme.
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Sort Code Validation Accreditation Scheme
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The Sort Code Validation Accreditation Scheme is a voluntary scheme which has arisen from industry initiatives to improve the distribution of Bank Reference Data – specifically the requirement to provide assurance that the sort code information within the UK payments industry is accurate and up to date.
The Scheme is aimed at those commercial providers that offer sort code validation products on a subscription basis and / or a ‘pay per use’ basis to assist organisations with the management of their electronic payment processing needs.
The Sort Code Validation Accreditation Scheme enables providers to offer their customers sort code validation products that carry Pay.UK’s approval, providing the minimum “threshold criteria” have been met.
In return, providers of accredited products have industry approval of their products and are listed in the table of accredited products below. You will also find further information on availability, accessibility and additional functionality of these sort code validation products.
Learn more about the Sort Code Valiation Accreditation Scheme.