How does the UK money transfer system work?
The most common ways of making payments in the UK are: paying with your debit card or credit card, writing cheques from your current account, allowing direct debit and setting up standing orders. Account-to-account transfers (called CHAPS) are possible, but expensive and therefore relatively rare. How do debit cards work in the UK? Debit cards in the UK are best known as “Switch” cards (as “EFTPOS” in Australia). In the UK, you pay with your Switch card and signature and the money is taken out of your account immediately (as opposed to payments by credit card, which may take a month to be taken out of your account). What is the “current account”? For your everyday transactions, you will need a “current account”. This is the equivalent to the “checking account” in the U.S., “Compte Courant” in France and “Girokonto” in Germany. For your savings, you may want to open an additional “savings account”. What is the “sort code”? Every branch of every bank has a “sort code”, which will look li
