Paym, a service offered by 17 leading banks and building societies in the UK that enables users to make money transfers via their phones, added 624,000 users in the second half of 2015 to reach a total of 3.2 million.

And users sent a total of £76 million in the period from 1 July-31 December 2015, a dramatic increase from the £67 million sent over the whole of the previous year (1 July 2014-30 June 2015),

However, Paym does not share the size of its active user base, as opposed to those bank or building society customers who sign up for the service but use it only infrequently.

The volume of payments is certainly growing healthily, reaching 1.46 million transactions in the second half of 2015, an increase from 774,000 sequentially and from 431,000 year on year.

The service only launched in April 2014, so a healthy growth in user numbers and traffic should not be so surprising.

More than 40 million bank and building society customers in the UK are able to register for Paym because their financial institutions back the service, so 3.2 million is less than 10 per cent penetration, leaving Paym with plenty of headroom.

Backers include leading UK banks and building societies Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds Bank, Nationwide Building Society, NatWest and Santander, whose uses can send and receive Paym payments.

Paym is run by the Mobile Payments Service Company (MPSCo). The participants in MPSCo are made up of the banks and building societies that offer the Paym service.