What is a Faster Payment? (NHSE)

Faster payments are a way in which an individual can be paid outside of the standard payroll process. Faster payments can be requested by an organisation for a number of different reasons.


Faster payments can be requested and approved as a means of ensuring individuals are paid in full / recover additional payment as soon as possible to avoid any inconvenience. However, HR Shared Services (HRSS) cannot agree a faster payment on behalf of the client, the decision must be made by the client organisation as some payroll providers charge to make these additional payments.


Faster payments are run in different ways depending on the urgency of the request. For less urgent payments a BACS payment can be arranged on the next available run which can take up to 5 days to process, payroll usually run these once a week. Urgent faster payments can be run the same day. This is usually where an individual has not been paid at all for example, the employee has returned from sickness absence or maternity, and a faster payment can be run any day of the week with payment arriving in the individual's bank account the same day.