A North Star for Payments: What’s needed from the UK National Payments Vision

The long-discussed and widely trailed National Payments Vision will have significant implications for the UK Financial Services sector. Successive governments have promised a streamlined rule book and an overarching ambition to supercharge growth and innovation in the sector.

Today, WA Communications hosted a roundtable with voices from across the payments and fintech ecosystem to discuss what industry wants to see from the forthcoming Vision as speculation grows that an announcement is imminent.

Joined by Financial Times’ Retail Banking and Fintech Reporter Akila Quinio, Innovate Finance’s Chief Strategy Officer Adam Jackson, global payment firm Block’s Head of Public Policy, Iana Vidal, Senior Director Natasha Egan-Sjodin sets out her key takeaways from the discussion:

An ambitious vision for the sector is welcome, but this needs to be matched by a firm plan of action and direction for politicians, industry and the regulator to align behind and ensure progress is swift.  

In inheriting the work done on this to date, there is an opportunity for the Labour Government to immediately progress technical changes which could propel the UK payments landscape and offer to consumers; from Account to Account payments, Variable Recurring Payments and Strong Customer Authentication and everything in between, there is “low-hanging fruit” everyone can get behind to maintain momentum and diversify the UK offer.

Pressure is rising on the National Payments Vision to provide a roadmap for the UK to follow in order to be a global leader in the payments ecosystem following political and regulatory changes in key competitor markers.

With one eye on the US in particular, the incoming Trump administration’s protectionist tendencies presents a risk for UK retention of start up and scale up brands – some of our most beloved exports – and our competitive edge of innovation and growth. To remain globally competitive, addressing the regulatory and compliance burden on firms will be key.

To remain competitive, the National Payments Vision needs to take a cross-sector view to progressing the UK market and consumer offer, considering the role of tech, access to data and interoperability with other markets to expand the availability of products.

Any work now taken forward within the National Payments Vision needs to sit alongside and work in harmony with changes already underway in the UK and in other markets. This includes JROC’s progress on open banking and open finance implementation, development of a UK digital ID framework and live regulator-owned workstreams on CBDCs, blockchain and digital assets.

Ownership of the National Payment Vision, the ambitions it will achieve and the clear delivery roadmap needed to get there still needs to be clarified and political support is critical.

Whether with the regulator, at home in HM Treasury or with the Bank of England there are a number of interested parties at play and collaboration and cooperation is key. However, a key question remaining is where ownership of the Vision and its ambitions will lie, and how this impacts what it will set out to achieve.