Some payments that should have been processed within two hours have taken nearly two days owing to a backlog following a system failure. Bank customers have been pushed into overdrafts owing to the fault in the Faster Payments system used by most of the UK's banks and building societies. The shutdown and subsequent hangover means some payments and transfers from Sunday afternoon have not yet cleared. The operator of the service apologised and said any charges would be refunded. The UK's Faster Payments system is one of the major pillars of the UK's infrastructure for moving money. Payments, and transfers between bank accounts, using the system should reach their destination within two hours, and often clear instantaneously. A fault occurred between 13:00 and 17:30 BST on Sunday, at a time when a total of 769,480 payments were being processed.

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