The United Kingdom Payments Council Wednesday announced consumers in the U.K. now can enroll in Paym, a mobile-payment system that uses mobile phone numbers to identify recipients and eliminates the need for senders to know recipients' banking details.

Paym launches April 29, the council announced in a press release.

Nine financial institutions in the U.K. will initially participate in Paym, and several major banks will join later this year, Mobile Payments Today reported last month.

The Payments Council projects Paym will help U.K. consumers more easily pay off IOUs and other small-dollar loans, the organization said in a statement

"Our IOU research suggests that every adult in the U.K. is lending just under £5 per week to someone they know," Adrian Kamellard, chief executive of the payments council, said in a statement. "Small sums like this soon add up, so it's great that Paym will give people a new option of quickly and securely paying someone back — whether it's for lunch, a train ticket or just a cup of tea."