Gemba · FCA FRN 804853  ·  Independent editorial · Introducer Partner
01 / Solutions · Payment Infrastructure

Every UK and EU rail.
One account. No stitching.

FPS, BACS, CHAPS, SEPA SCT and SDD, TARGET2 and SWIFT — from a single Gemba account. Below: a selector that tells you which rail to use, a full matrix with costs and cut-offs, and the traps we've watched finance teams walk into.

Open a Gemba account Read the cross-border guide
Pick a rail — interactive
Corridor
UK→EU
Amount
£12,500
Urgency
Same day
Currency
GBP
SEPA Credit Transfer
SCT · 28 countries
Fee
€0.20
ETA
< 1 bd
Cut-off
Continuous
Send via SEPA →

NOTE · SCT Inst available for <€100k

§ 02

The full rail matrix

Every network available from a Gemba account, with real costs, cut-offs and limits. Sorted by geography, then speed.

Rail Use for Speed Cost / txn Per-txn limit Cut-off
United Kingdom · GBP
Faster Payments
FPS · domestic real-time
Supplier payments, refunds, treasury sweeps < 10 sec Free incl. £1,000,000 24 / 7
BACS Direct Credit
Bulk scheme, 3-day cycle
Payroll, pensions, regular supplier runs T+3 £0.20 No limit T-2 · 22:30
BACS Direct Debit
Scheduled collections
Subscription collections, dunning T+3 £0.20 No limit T-2 · 22:30
CHAPS
Same-day RTGS · high-value
Property completions, wholesale settlement Same-day £22.00 No limit Mon-Fri · 14:20
European Union · EUR
SEPA Credit Transfer
SCT · 36 SEPA countries
Cross-border EUR supplier and intercompany < 1 bd €0.20 No scheme limit Continuous
SCT Instant
SEPA Instant · 10 sec max
Real-time EUR payouts < 10 sec €0.40 €100,000 24 / 7
SEPA Direct Debit
B2B and CORE
EUR subscription collections T+2 / T+5 €0.30 No scheme limit T-1 · 14:00 CET
TARGET2
Eurosystem RTGS
Wholesale EUR settlement Same-day €16.00 No limit Mon-Fri · 17:00 CET
International · 160+ countries
SWIFT MT103
Cross-border wire
USD, CAD, AUD, CHF, JPY and 145 more 1–3 bd £12 + FX No limit Mon-Fri · 15:30
SWIFT gpi
Tracked · same-day capable
Large cross-border with traceability < 1 bd £12 + FX No limit Mon-Fri · 15:30

FX SPREAD · INTERBANK MID + 0.35% ON G10, + 0.85% ON EXOTICS · PUBLISHED IN THE FX TREASURER

§ 03

Which rail for which job

A shortcut for finance teams who don't want to re-learn SEPA every Friday.

UK payroll, 240 employees
Monthly run, reliability > speed
BACS
Cycles T-2 → T → payday; £0.20 per line; accepted by every UK HMRC-compliant scheme. Not FPS because you don't need real-time and BACS is cheaper at volume.
£1.4m property completion
Solicitor demands same-day cleared funds
CHAPS
FPS cap is £1m per transaction; CHAPS is the only UK rail that settles > £1m same-day via RTGS. £22 fee is standard across all UK PSPs.
Refund to a UK customer
E-commerce return, £89
Faster Payments
Free, clears in seconds including weekends. Use the payer's original IBAN or collect a new one via a Confirmation of Payee check.
EUR supplier in Berlin, €48,000
Monthly invoice, 14-day terms
SEPA Credit Transfer
Standard SCT settles next business day at €0.20. Don't use SWIFT — you'll lose €30+ and 2 days to no benefit.
Urgent EUR payout, €250k
End-of-day deadline
TARGET2
Above the SCT Inst €100k cap and you need certainty today. TARGET2 is €16, cut-off 17:00 CET. SCT would work if deadline were tomorrow.
Contractor in São Paulo, $3,500
Pay in local BRL
SWIFT + FX
No SEPA, no FPS. Convert GBP → BRL at mid + 0.85%, send via SWIFT MT103. Use OUR charges so the contractor receives gross.
§ 04

What a typical month costs

Three representative SME profiles, priced line by line. No onboarding fees, no monthly platform minimum.

Profile 01

UK-only SME

12 staff · one supplier region

Payroll (BACS, 12 lines) £2.40
Supplier payments (FPS, 48) £0.00
Monthly CHAPS (1) £22.00
Direct Debits collected (86) £17.20
Total / month £41.60

VS · HSBC business equivalent: ≈ £78

Profile 02

EU-trading SME

24 staff · EUR suppliers

Payroll (BACS, 24) £4.80
UK supplier (FPS, 60) £0.00
SEPA SCT to EUR (32) €6.40
SEPA Instant (4) €1.60
Total / month £13.40

VS · Wise + Barclays stack: ≈ £92

Profile 03

Global operator

80 staff · USD + 5 corridors

Payroll (BACS, 80) £16.00
SEPA SCT (140) €28.00
SWIFT to USD (24) £288.00
SWIFT to APAC (8) £96.00
Total / month £424.00

VS · High-street + FX broker: ≈ £1,140

§ 05

Gotchas we've watched teams walk into

The kind of detail a sales deck skips. Worth a scan before your first run.

01

FPS caps out at £1m per transaction

Most UK PSPs — Gemba included — enforce the scheme ceiling. Above £1m, the outbound payment will either reject or silently re-route to CHAPS with a fee. Split into tranches or use CHAPS intentionally.

02

BACS cycles mean T-2 cut-off, not T

If payday is Friday, the file must be submitted by 22:30 on Wednesday. Miss that and staff get paid Monday. Tuesdays are the single highest "oh no" ticket volume in payroll bureaus.

03

SEPA SDD has a two-track scheme (CORE vs B2B)

CORE allows debtor refund up to 8 weeks no-questions-asked. B2B requires a signed mandate registered with the debtor's bank and has no refund window. Collecting from consumers on B2B will be rejected.

04

SWIFT charges: SHA is not free

SHA (default) means the sender pays the sender-side fee and the receiver absorbs intermediary deductions — typically $15–40 per hop. For contractor payments use OUR charges so they receive the full amount.

05

Confirmation of Payee is live on FPS and CHAPS

Since 2023 every UK PSP must validate payee name against account details. A bulk BACS file with mis-capitalised names will trigger partial-match warnings on every line — a real-world cause of batch rejection.

06

SCT Instant coverage isn't universal yet

The receiving bank must also be SCT Inst-capable. Coverage is ≈ 70% of EUR banks by volume. Fallback to standard SCT is automatic but adds a day.

§ 06

Plugged into your stack

Bulk CSV, SWIFT MT940 statements, Xero / Sage / QuickBooks reconciliation, REST API with webhook callbacks on every state change.

Bulk files

Upload pain.001 (ISO 20022) or a plain CSV. Validation report returned in under 10 seconds.

Webhooks

POST on every state transition — INITIATED, AUTHORISED, SETTLED, FAILED, RETURNED — with idempotency keys.

Reconciliation

Auto-match incoming SWIFT MT940 lines to your GL. Unmatched transactions land in a queue, not your inbox.

Multi-user approval

Maker-checker with configurable thresholds. Full audit log exportable to CSV or piped to your SIEM.

POST /v2/payments
{
"rail": "SEPA_SCT",
"amount": 48000.00,
"currency": "EUR",
"creditor": {
"iban": "DE89...",
"name": "Müller GmbH"
},
"reference": "INV-2026-0412",
"idempotency_key": "c3f7..."
}
→ 201 Created · settled in 847 ms
§ 07 · Next step

Open an account. Send your first payment today.

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