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Up to 2.5% to be reminded of a payment? Really?  

@Peter, and surely one of the major advantages that banks have versus challengers, through wrapping a feature up inside their (trusted) mobile banking app, is that it should give customers more confidence.  But because of their poor promotion of PayM, they're not taking advantage of their position here.

As the saying goes: it takes two to tango.  I'd love to use PayM more but not so many of my 'would be beneficiaries' are yet signed up to it.  Faster Payments has been a tremendous success and is now normal behaviour in the UK.  PayM simplifies FP further, by using the beneficiary's phone number, a piece of data which most payers would have, and provides the payer with certainty that their 'fat fingers' aren't going to lead to their money going missing.  What's not to like?  I really think the issue here is poor promotion and marketing by the banks themselves.  But having said that and as others have commented, it's still early days.

One of the key benefits of PayM (which a normal faster payment doesn't provide) is that users can be sure that they're sending their money to the right person.   However, at the moment, PayM can only be provided by institutions that are directly connected to the FPS infrastructure.  Otherwise, the payment is simply too slow to satisfy the 'instant' expectation of a PayM user.  'Challengers' ought to be well positioned to take advantage of mobile technology, so it's vital that open access to the FPS infrastructure is accelerated.  If so, PayM could become the de facto method for P2P payments in the UK.

.....because people with iPhone 6's are the most needy of transport subsidies, of course!

Personally, I'm never too happy when people profit from their crimes.

Even if the take up of switching is currently low, at least a 'technology obstacle' has now been removed. Prior to CASS, the difficulty in switching was anti-competitive and this was a blocker especially to challenger banks.  Just because volumes of switching have disappointed, it doesn't mean that making switching easier wasn't worthwhile.  I'm sure that once word of mouth gets around (through customers' experiences, rather than banks saying so) that account switching is straightforward more will follow. 

Of course, the other driver to increase these levels of switching would be for banks to offer something better.  A recent survey has shown that the ability to make payments more quickly and easily would be a factor.  So providing to challenger banks easy access to payment systems is a vital next step towards increased competition, following on from CASS.

The survey is saying that, for almost half the respondents, a reliable, and fast payments service is a factor to consider as part of a decision to switch. With challenger banks entering the fray as directly connected participants, we could finally start to see some account switching traction, which is what regulators have been hoping for.

Wow! Four new Banks: Lloyds, Bank of Scotland, Halifax and TSB!  So Lloyds Banking Group, then!

But alternative payments needn't be a burden on the consumer.  Personally, if I can't make a convenient card purchase that's when I feel inconvenienced.  The thought of having coins rattling in my trouser pocket because I need to break into a note to buy a sandwich draws me away from a retailer that doesn't take cards.  Is my attitude that unusual?