The UK Competition and Markets Authority has given green signal for the approval of a New Payments Systems Operator that will consolidate all the different operators in the payments industry including BACS, Cheque and Credit Clearing Company and Faster Payments Scheme into a single window system.
A breakthrough move to inject more healthy competition into the UK payments market, the ‘Payments Strategy Forum’ created by the Payments Regulator is expected to revive the market conditions radically.
Approving the initiative, Hannah Nixon, PSR Managing Director, said, “ The consolidation should support one of the PSR’s key requirements to support increased choice of access and to develop common participation models and rules. This should make it easier for banks, fintechs, and other payment service providers to enter the market and compete effectively.”
With the merger of the three independent schemes into one consolidated format, PSR and the Bank of England will jointly develop a delivery platform, which the agencies expect to commission by the end of 2018.
The unified entity will then become responsible for the next stage of the development of the New Payments Architecture (NPA), an industry-led initiative that aims to increase competition and resilience as well as enhance innovation across the payments and banking industry.
