Source: BACS
A staggering 103 million payments were processed in just one day at the end of July by Bacs Payment Schemes Limited (Bacs), the organisation behind Direct Debit in the UK.
The not-for-profit company has already seen records fall this year, but reached this major milestone on 31 July - the equivalent of 6.65 million payments an hour, or nearly 111,000 every single minute the processing window was open.
The record-breaking figure included 91 million Direct Debits and 12 million Bacs Direct Credits and surpasses the previous daily high of 99.3 million transactions, set in February 2015.
On top of that, Bacs can also announce that the company has processed 110 billion transactions since its inception in 1968. Just to put that figure into context, that’s more than the total number of people to have ever walked the earth!
Making regular payments by Direct Debit has become second nature for millions of consumers, with eight-out-of-ten adults in the UK having at least one Direct Debit and around 71 per cent of household bills paid this way.
The continuing popularity of Direct Debit as a means of managing household income and spreading costs was given a further boost in October 2014, with the Driver and Vehicle Licencing Agency’s (DVLA) launch of Direct Debit as a payment method for vehicle tax. So far, around eight million motorists have taken up the option to pay monthly.
Bacs CEO Michael Chambers said: “It is a testament to the continuing popularity of our products with consumers and businesses alike that, yet again, we are seeing processing records being broken.
“These two new milestones come after a record 2014, in which we processed almost six billion payments, representing the highest level of growth since 2007.”