Forget that old cliché about the cheque being in the post, as of this week, the money is in the mobile. Paym, or ‘pay-em’, as it’s been dubbed, is a quick and easy way to pay for things using a mobile phone.

Although it’s not the first mobile phone payment system, this is the one tipped to catch on.

Up until now, those on offer were too complicated and/or small scale to be of much use but this one is different because it’s incredibly easy to use, as well as being secure.

All it needs is your mobile phone number plus the person you need to pay’s mobile number and it can transfer money between the two of you.

To sign up, just log onto your bank’s internet banking section and set up a password for mobile banking.

Download the app to your phone (available for iPhone and Android), then log onto the app and follow the instructions. As long as you know the other person’s mobile number, you’re there.

It’s free and you can send anything from as little as £1 up to £250 a day.

So far, Bank of Scotland, Barclays, Cumberland Building Society, Danske Bank, Halifax, HSBC, Lloyds Bank, Santander and TSB have all signed up and several more, including First Direct and NatWest, are coming on board later this year and Nationwide in 2015.

Of course, the person you need to pay, or who wants to pay you, has to be registered too but since half a million people have signed up in the past three weeks, it’s looking good.

The other big happening in money land this week is to do with payments of a much bigger sort, namely mortgages.

TV and radio headlines have been screaming that anyone who wants to take out a mortgage now faces tougher mortgage application checks to stop a repeat of poor practice of the past that saw millions defaulting on loans they couldn’t afford.

This stricter set of rules, called the Mortgage Market Review (MMR), came into force last week.

Lenders are asking to see between three and six months of bank statements, so they can see how much you spend and where you spend it.

It’s not just household bills, childcare and travel expenses that are taken into consideration but also one-off spending such as boozy nights out and weekends away, too. Then there are the so-called stress tests, which are designed to see if you can still afford your repayments even if interest rates go up. But before this sends anyone into a panic, head of mortgages at NatWest and Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyd Cochrane, claims it won’t be any more difficult for people coming to them than it has been for the past two years.

Meanwhile, those nice people over at the Citizens’ Advice Bureau say they “broadly support” these measures because, as chief economist Hugh Stickland points out: “Mortgages need to be affordable not just now but in the future.”