About us

For over 50 years, Bacs has been at the heart of the payments industry. On 1 May 2018, Bacs Payment Schemes Limited became a wholly owned subsidiary of the new home for UK retail payments, Pay.UK. The Direct Debit and Bacs Direct Credit are owned and operated by Pay.UK​​.

No one has more authority when it comes to Direct Debit than we do. Indeed, we are responsible for the schemes behind the clearing and settlement of automated payments in the UK, including Bacs Direct Credit as well as Direct Debit. We have a proud record of maintainin​​g the integrity of payment related services throughout five decades.

Since its inception, more than 140 billion transactions have been debited or credited to British bank accounts via Bacs and, in 2019, 6.5 billion UK payments were made this way. A new record was set in November​ 2019, with 124 million transactions processed in a single day, while the value of transactions processed reached £58.8 billion on one day alone in April 2017, another record.

Direct Debits are used by nine in ten UK consumers to pay some or all of their regular bills. More than 4.5 billion Direct Debits were processed in 2019.

Eight in ten employees in the UK are paid via Bacs Direct Credit and it is also the payment of choice for a range of other applications such as pensions payments, employee expenses, insurance settlements, dividends and refunds. 

​For more information about Bacs visit www.bacs.co.uk.