APACS

APACS (Association for Payment Clearing Services), the UK payments association, is the trade body that gives banks, building societies and card issuers a forum where they can work together on non-competitive issues. They manage the way that businesses and individuals in the UK move their money around — this covers cash, credit and debit cards, cheques and automated payments such as direct debits, salary payments and online/phone transactions. They champion the fight against banking fraud and work to give consumers greater card fraud protection by introducing chip and PIN.

APACS standards define both procedural and technical practice for:
*Debits (including cheques)
*Standing order mandates
*Coin packaging and banknote wrappers
*Magnetic media interchange
*Interchange data formats
*EFTPOS device communications
*Other services

APACS members:
*Abbey National
*ABN AMRO
*Alliance & Leicester
*Bank of America
*Bank of England
*Bank of Ireland
*Bank of Scotland
*Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi
*Barclays Bank
*Capital One
*Citigroup
*Co-operative Bank
*Deutsche Bank
*DnB NOR Bank
*Egg
*GE Capital
*HFC Bank
*HSBC
*JPMorgan
*Lloyds TSB
*MBNA
*Morgan Stanley
*NAB
*Nationwide Building Society
*National Westminster Bank
*Northern Rock
*RBS
*Royal Bank of Scotland
*Royal Mail
*Standard Chartered Bank
*Wachovia

In 1994 APACS commissioned BACS Limited to develop and deliver a networked service known as IBDE (Inter-Bank Data Exchange) to facilitate the clearance of cheques between the member banks.

In the late 1990s — in an effort to counter the growing problem of 'skimming' which is fraudulently copying a credit card for criminal purposes — APACS pioneered the development of credit cards containing a computer chip. The early APACS work proved the viability of 'chip cards', and helped in the creation of the common EMV (Europay, Mastercard, VISA) standards for such cards.

In December 2005, the association of banks started the Faster Payments Service initiative to improve the speed of lower value consumer and business transactions, to be used in parallel with the CHAPS and BACS systems.

References

* [http://www.APACS.org.uk APACS website]

External links

* [http://www.apacs.org.uk/ APACS official website]
* [http://www.apacs.org.uk/payment_options/cheques_draft.html APACS Cheque Clearing]
* [http://www.apacs.org.uk/payment_options/cheques_draft.html APACS Bankers Draft]
* [http://www.apacs.org.uk/ APACS Bank Giro Credits]
* [http://www.apacs.org.uk/payments_industry/payment_fraud_2.html APACS information on Cheque Fraud]

* [http://www.choosingandusing.com/ Guide to Choosing and Using a Credit Card] from [http://www.apacs.org.uk APACS, the UK Payments Association]
* [http://www.chequeandcredit.co.uk Cheque and Credit Clearing Company] - the organisation that manages cheque clearing in the UK
* [http://www.cardwatch.org.uk Card Watch] Card Watch is a UK banking industry initiative that aims to raise awareness of card fraud prevention. Managed by [http://www.apacs.org.uk APACS, the UK Payments Association]
* [http://www.paymentscouncil.org.uk Payments Council website]
* [http://www.retailersandcards.org.uk Retailers and Cards] The Retailers and Cards website provides general help and guidance for both new and existing merchants on accepting cards for their businesses. Managed by [http://www.apacs.org.uk APACS, the UK Payments Association]