Business Banking
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Bankline
Getting started
User getting started hub
Step 2

Step 2

On this page:

First log in Open in new window

The Bankline dashboard Open in new window

Where to find help Open in new window

Introducing payments Open in new window

Step 2 overview

Once you’ve got all the log-in items we covered in Step 1, you’re ready to start using Bankline.

We’ll take you through your first log in, help you get settled, and share useful resources as we go.

What are the log in items I need again?

Your activation code: You’ll have this already in the email we sent you.
Your Customer ID and User ID: Log in details to enter on the log in screen. Your administrator should have given you these.
Your smartcard and card reader: Your administrator may give you these, or they may be sent to your home or office address.
Smartcard PIN: The code to activate your smartcard. We’ll post this to the address registered for you in Bankline.

There’s more info about these items and when they’re set to arrive back in Step 1.

Logging in for the first time

To activate your smartcard and log in for the first time, follow the instructions in our support guide:

How to log in for the first time Open in new window

You can also refer to the resources below. If you need any help click the chat button on the log in page. Cora will answer your questions and help you get logged in.

Tips for logging in

Always start from www.ulsterbank.co.uk/bankline, when logging in and go to the login page from there.

Don’t confuse your smartcard PIN with the Log in PIN you’ll create at first log in. The smartcard PIN is just for using with your smartcard.

Once you put in your Customer ID and User ID, you can find log in steps on the drop-down on the next screen.

Other resources to help you log in

How to log in for the first time?

I'm having problems logging in and using Bankline, what should I do?

I’m locked out of Bankline and there’s no administrator to go to, how do I get reinstated?

I need to request a new activation code

The Bankline dashboard – make yourself at home

Once you’re logged in, you’ll land on the dashboard.

Think of this as your home page. From here you can access key parts of Bankline. You can also customise your dashboard to suit you:

Shuffle the order of panels, or remove them altogether by clicking the cross.
Find info on Bankline updates and new features on the dashboard.
See up to 20 favourite accounts (more on this below).

How to customise your Bankline dashboard

To nominate up to 20 favourite accounts that you want to see on your dashboard:

Go to the 'Accounts' tab
Choose ‘View account balances and transactions’
Click the star to the left of the account(s).

Where to find help

While you’re getting settled, it’s worth us pointing out two things:

1. Support

The ‘Support’ button is toward the top right on every Bankline page. From here you can access our library of Bankline FAQs.

2. Chat now

The ‘Chat now’ button pops up toward the bottom right of each page. Click this to chat to us anytime. Cora can answer your queries and connect you to a Bankline specialist (in working hours). Once you start a chat, you can move the location of the chat box.

Introducing payments

Making payments is a key part of Bankline. Let’s start with a look at the different kinds of payments you can make:

How to make payments

Your business can customise how payments are made and controlled in Bankline. Options include setting payment limits, introducing extra approval steps and setting the criteria for when extra approval is needed.

Your administrator will be able to explain the specifics of how your business has been set up, but here are a few general pointers:

Raising and approving

These are the two crucial steps to making a payment. Raising involves entering and submitting the payment details. Approving involves taking the final security steps to review and approve the payment.

Depending on the payment type and your Bankline settings, you may need to do one or both of these:

Approve the payment you’ve raised with your smartcard and reader.
Have a colleague with approval privileges approve the payment with their smartcard and reader.

Where a second approver is needed, we call this ‘Dual approval’. Your administrators sets when this extra level of control applies.

More about security options

Along with dual approval, administrators can use other security settings to protect your business. The main options include:

Setting profile wide and individual user payment limits.
Setting which countries are available to make international payments to.

Faster Payments / domestic payments

Faster Payments are sometimes referred to in Bankline as ‘standard domestic’ payments. Faster Payments is the UK's service for sending payments between UK accounts, 24/7.

You can make Faster Payments of up to £1 million in Bankline, and you can include a reference of up to 18 characters. This is generally the cheapest way to make domestic UK payments. If you need to make a payment over £1 million or need an extended reference, you have CHAPS as an option.

There are 3 types of Faster Payment:

Immediate - the money will leave your account immediately on full approval, and will usually be credited to the payee's account in near real time.
Next day - the money will leave your account and be received by the payee on the day after the payment is approved.
Future dated - for payments to be made at least two days ahead, the money will leave your account and be received by the payee on the date you choose.

Next day and future dated payments are generally less expensive than immediate payments.

View Bankline payment fees Open in new window

Transfers between your accounts

Also referred to as inter account transfers or IATs. This is a way of transferring funds in sterling or foreign currency between your registered accounts in Bankline.

Usually, you’ll be able to see and use the transferred funds immediately.

CHAPS payments

A CHAPS payment is a way of moving money between UK sterling accounts, with funds arriving cleared on the same working day.

CHAPS can be used for payments of any amount, but are commonly used for payments over £1 million. Payments under £1 million can be made as Faster Payments (standard domestic), which are cheaper to send.

CHAPS payments are also suitable when you need to include a reference for the payee of more than 18 characters. They can be sent Monday to Friday (excluding public holidays) and usually have a cut off time of 5.30pm.

International

An international payment is a payment to a payee outside the UK, in GBP or a foreign currency.

They may require a foreign exchange deal. This will be arranged automatically when you’re raising the payment, if you haven't pre-booked a foreign exchange deal with us.

International payments can be sent immediately or set for a future date. The payee may receive the payment on the same day or a few days later.

Admin settings in Bankline control which countries you can make payments to.

Note: You can’t make outbound payments in GBP directly from your currency account(s) to the UK or Domestic Union destinations (Guernsey, Jersey, Isle of Man, Gibraltar) on Bankline. To send payments in GBP to your payees in these territories, you’ll need to select a GBP account as your debiting account and choose GBP for the 'payment currency and amount'.

Standing orders

Standing orders are recurring payments you can set up that are then made automatically for as long as the standing instruction apply.

To set up or edit a standing order for one of your accounts, there’s a separate online form to complete, which you can access via Bankline.

Payments from bulk lists

A bulk list is a saved list of payees (or internal accounts) that you can pay together from a single account and will show as one debit on your statement, adding a low level of confidentiality to them. They’re handy to set up for regular payments that need to go from one to multiple payees/accounts, and are often used for salary payments.

You can set up bulk lists for Faster Payments (standard domestic), and for transfers between your own accounts.

When creating a bulk list, adding payees or changing payee details, we strongly recommend you do a Confirmation of Payee name check first, as this isn’t done by Bankline as standrd. Also check the details are up to date on a regular basis.

Payments from templates

Templates let you create and save payee details for future use when making payments. Useful if you have regular payees. They offer more flexibility than bulk lists, as you can set a maximum amount that can be sent. You can also create templates for domestic and international payments and transfers between your accounts.

How to make payments

Your administrator will be able to explain the specifics of how your business has been set up, but here are a few general pointers:

Raising and approving

Depending on the payment type and your Bankline settings, you may need to do one or both of these:

Approve the payment you’ve raised with your smartcard and reader.
Have a colleague with approval privileges approve the payment with their smartcard and reader.

Where a second approver is needed, we call this ‘Dual approval’. Your administrators sets when this extra level of control applies.

More about security options

Along with dual approval, administrators can use other security settings to protect your business. The main options include:

Setting profile wide and individual user payment limits.
Setting which countries are available to make international payments to.

Importing payments

For high volumes of payments (payroll payments for example) one time-saving option is to import them to Bankline in a file, they can then be reviewed and approved as a group.

We support most common file types.

Learn more about importing payments Open in new window

Security advice

Your organisation should have processes in place to ensure you check the validity of all payment requests. This can include:

Verifying requests to change account details for a payment by calling the payee on a number you know and trust.
Running a 'confirmation of payee' check on all payees you want to add to bulk lists or imports. This check is not done as standard for bulk lists Bankline.
Introduce a standard process for members of your team to request payments, and question unusual or unexpected requests for payments. Phone the member of staff making the request to confirm the request came from them.

If your organisation has two or more people involved in making a payment, be aware of your responsibilities and don’t rely on anyone else involved in the process to make the relevant checks.

Keep up to date on current fraud threats by visiting the security centre, attending our fraud awareness webinars, and reading any on screen messages and alerts.

Resources to help with payments

These resources will help you when you come to raising and approving all kinds of payments:

How to make a domestic payment?

How to approve payments?

How do I make an international payment?

How do I create a template?

End of step 2

We hope you’ll feel at home in Bankline in no time.

In Step 3, we’ll cover tips for getting the very best from Bankline and resources for future success.

Return to Step 1 Open in new window

Move on to Step 3 Open in new window

Step 2

Step 2 overview

Logging in for the first time

Tips for logging in

Other resources to help you log in

The Bankline dashboard – make yourself at home

Where to find help

1. Support

2. Chat now

Introducing payments

How to make payments

Raising and approving

Faster Payments / domestic payments

Transfers between your accounts

CHAPS payments

International

Standing orders

Payments from bulk lists

Payments from templates

How to make payments

Raising and approving

Importing payments

Security advice

Resources to help with payments

How to approve payments?

How do I make an international payment?

How do I create a template?

End of step 2

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