“The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” â So says Leo Colston, the hero of L.P. Hartleyâs famous book The Go Between. Undoubtedly this is true of the worlds of business and computing when we look back to 1968 from the vantage point of the present day. Despite the inroads into the popular imagination made by programmes like Mad Men, the general impression one has of business life in the 1960s is of a rather sleepier, simpler age: the image of gentlemen in sharp suits executing business deals in a formalistic and gentlemanly manner, their days punctuated by long and alcoholic lunches. This world, in which old boysâ networks rather than social networking sites were the order of the day; when computers were frequently bigger than the plant machinery they counted or ran; when âbugsâ in computers more often than not were genuine beasts stuck in the works â seems to be separated from the ruthless, iconoclastic, fast-paced and carnivorous world of post-1980s economic life by a whole lot more than 46 years.Â
But one thing has remained unchanged in those 46 years: BACS payments. Invented in 1968 by Dennis Gladwell of the Joint Stock Banks Clearing Committee, BACS began life as the Inter-Bank Computer Bureau, it cut out the time-consuming and inefficient system of paper-based transfers between banks. Today, thanks to constantly-improving BACS software, BACS is continuing to cut down on paper usage, and make payments more reliable and rapid, for thousands of firms around the world. Since 2005 the clearing-house has been moved from a telephone-based system to BACSTEL-IP servers, and BACS has really come into its own as an online service, making for even quicker transfers.Â
Even though some other services are challenging for its spot as the worldâs leading payment transfer service, over 5 billion BACS payments are made every year, and while some competitors may claim to have faster systems than the BACS software, the majority of all the workers in the UK still receive their wages via BACS.
The continued dominance of this banking behemoth means that the BACS-accredited training schemes offered by Bottomlineâs dedicated educators, who know the BACS system inside and out, are of irreplaceable value for businesses â and the same goes for the BACS and Faster Payments software which Bottomline services have developed. When it comes to the leading worldwide payments system, Bottomline Technologies lead the way in BACS software.
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