Company history

Did You Know?

  • Cheques have been around since the 1700s and whilst we haven’t been processing them for that long, we do have a proven track record. 
  • Cheque volumes peaked to a massive 4 billion in 1990.
  • The Cheque and Credit Clearing Company Ltd tells us that the average number of cheques which were cleared per day in 2018 was 929,000 with an unbelievable value of £1.18 billion.
  • Under image clearing, iPSL processes around 60% of all UK cheques

To find out more about cheque clearing in general, click here to visit the pay.uk website

Timeline of Activity 

iPSL was formed as a joint venture between Barclays Bank, Lloyds Banking Group and Unisys, an outsourcing and technology services company.

HSBC became a new shareholder, increasing our site numbers from seven to fourteen. Unisys remained the major shareholder with 51%.

iPSL continued to evolve and operational efficiencies allowed us to reduce to twelve sites.

A challenging five years with system and industry changes including the T246 reduced clearing cycle.  Amalgamation of work and sites continued, with a migration of activity into a new site in Northfield, Milton Keynes.

Superior service delivered through new process efficiencies and a period for stabilisation. New work continued to come in, yet our sites reduced to six thanks to those process efficiencies.

Major system infrastructure changes for Barclays and new work from the Post Office.  Further outsourcing agreements with a major client led to our sites increasing to nine with an additional 500 employees.

Migrated international cheque processing.  Over 2,000 employees at the end of 2014.  Started the move to image-based clearing as the industry considered the  “Future Clearing Model”.

The industry Image Clearing System (ICS) was launched by Pay.uk and we continued working with our clients to move toward full image processing.  iPSL provide image-based services for Lloyds, HSBC and Barclays.

Increase in ICS cheque volume processing.  Service stabilised.  Our people supported through the changes as ICS removed most physical cheque handling and allowed us to consolidate to one core processing site.  Took on international cheque processing for another major client.

During the global pandemic, we adapted to new ways of working, protecting our colleagues whilst still delivering excellent service and taking on additional client work.  

Raymond Pettitt joined as CEO and our  journey from Good to Great started.

Good to Great continues and our Cloud and Lean Agile Operations programs are transforming key areas of our business.

Good to Great

Our journey will take us through to 2023 and beyond and will be delivered via our Medium Term Plan and six workstreams;

  • Cloud 

  • Lean Agile Operations

  • People and Culture

  • Client Relationship Management 

  • Automation 

  • Data Driven Continuous Improvement 

Please contact us if you would like to know more.

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