Phone cash transfers are a year away

The UK’s first industry-wide scheme to allow people to transfer cash to friends and businesses as easily as text messaging will be running from spring 2014, the payments body said yesterday.

Eight financial institutions, representing 90 per cent of UK current accounts, have signed up to the project, with more expected to follow, the Payments Council said.

The new service allows people to make payments to someone else simply by using a mobile phone number and without their sort code and account number.

Customers will register for the service through their own bank, without having to share their details with anyone else.

Those involved in the scheme are Barclays, Cumberland Building Society, Danske Bank, HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group, Metro Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland and Santander.

The council had delayed launch from 2012 to build awareness of the scheme.