The key question now is: what needs to happen to move from vision to strategy?

UK Finance’s members – from commercial finance to capital markets – have a vested interest in making wholesale and retail payments work well and in a resilient and secure way. For the 100+ members who run the payments ecosystem – card acquirers and schemes, retail banks, open banking fintech firms – there’s a pressing need for an investable 5-10 year infrastructure and forward plan for payments. Boards and shareholders are looking for growth opportunities at home and abroad. The government has committed to publishing a Forward Payments Plan by the end of 2025.

The foundations

There are important enablers for the NPV: streamlining the regulatory framework and reforming our approach to delivering central infrastructure. The Payments Vision Delivery Committee (HMT, Bank of England, FCA and PSR) are tasked with a retail infrastructure plan by mid-year and rightly the focus has been on renewal of the central infrastructure for payments (replacing Faster Payments and Bacs).

However, technology alone isn’t enough. The NPV identifies three critical outcomes for end-users: innovation, security, and competition. These must shape not only the infrastructure, but the broader strategic direction.

Next comes the gap analysis: what are today’s challenges, and where can the UK lead globally?

Closing gaps, seizing opportunities

UK Finance’s work with the Vision Engagement Group has focused in on three core areas where the UK is falling short:

We have also identified major opportunities:

Learning from others

To build a strategic plan, we need to identify key short-term activities and roles and responsibilities for delivery. Australia’s Strategic Payments Plan sets a clear example: 17 initiatives under five priorities are being delivered by industry and regulators, with active government oversight and enablement through legislative change. The UK should consider a similar structure, tracking progress and assigning clear ownership. There are critical path items that can be unlocked: certainty of fate for low value open banking payments, for example, could give retailers full confidence to release goods in a timely fashion. Internationally, the UK can learn from India’s NPCI, which exports its UPI code to promote global interoperability; and the government should consider its commitment to the G20 interlinking of faster payment systems particularly as other regional developments such as Project Nexus flourish.

What’s next

UK Finance continues to work with Pay.UK and others on short term enhancements to the existing payment rails to enable some early progress on key initiatives. But we need to start work in earnest now if we want to build a wider achievable and investable Payments Forward Plan by the end of 2025. We will do future blogs on some of these key areas, and come to our Digital Innovation Summit on 24 June to hear more about industry leaders’ ambitions in this space.