A total of 98.6 million transactions were processed by the Bacs payment scheme in a single day last month, setting a new record.

This was the equivalent of 6.3 million payments an hour, or 106,000 every minute the processing window was open.

The record breaking day – only revealed as being at “the very end of November”, saw almost 76 million direct debits and 22 million Bacs direct credits passing through the system.

The record for the highest value of transactions was also set in April this year, at £52.3 billion; almost £3.4 million an hour or £56,000 for each minute of the processing day.

Bacs managing director, Michael Chambers, commented: "We've already set two records this year, for value and volume, and this is the second year running we’ve broken our own peak day processing record. All of that is a clear indication that our payment methods are still very much in demand.”

In 2013, 5.7 billion UK payments were made via Bacs, with a total combined value of almost £4.2 trillion.

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