Bacs Payments - a lifeline to those who aren't ready

As most organisations should be aware, the deadline for businesses to make sure they were compatible with new payment security measures (TLS and SHA-256) has been extended after around 1,000 companies failed to take the necessary action before the deadline date.

Despite the highly proactive communications campaigns from Bacs and technology vendors, informing companies about the replacement of Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) with Transport Layer Security (TLS), many businesses did not to act. 

Organisations not taking the appropriate action still risk being unable to pay staff and suppliers if the extended deadline is not met.

The new deadline is now 19 September 2016. This leaves organisations 7 weeks to go!

Our advice is to not be complacent as a result of this reprieve. Businesses choosing not to adopt compatible software upgrades, and an operating system that will support the changes, will have to make alternative arrangements to pay staff and suppliers after 19 September 2016. They will not be able to access Bacs after that final deadline, and there will be no further extension to the date.

If your company hasn’t already taken action on this issue, please reach out to your Bacs solution provider as soon as possible to confirm whether or not you’re using a compliant solution. If you use a bureau to send files to Bacs on your behalf, payroll for example, it is worth confirming with them that their solution is compliant.