Britain's planned retail payments infrastructure will move to industry-led delivery after a design handover in spring 2027, Victoria Cleland, chair of the Bank of England's Retail Payments Infrastructure Board, said.
The handover will allow an industry-led Delivery Company to begin detailed design, procurement, construction and implementation, Cleland said. The central bank published her speech, “UK Retail Payments Infrastructure: moving from vision to design”, on Nov. 11.
A public consultation launched in June drew 121 responses from financial institutions, payment companies, technology firms, merchants, consumers and others, the central bank said. Cleland said respondents broadly supported the proposed approach and wanted work to proceed quickly.
However, agreement on the direction left unresolved decisions about which functions belong in the shared infrastructure, how different payment systems should connect and how to transfer payments safely, she said.
Cleland said respondents supported both existing payment services and proposed uses, including direct account-to-account payments at checkout, payments between different forms of money and payments scheduled or triggered by specified conditions. They also supported instant payments using aliases.
The planned infrastructure would support multiple products and forms of money, including stablecoins, Cleland said. She said allowing someone to pay in one form of money while the recipient receives another at equal value would be an essential feature.
Respondents favoured a relatively small shared core, the infrastructure common to all payment products, but differed over which capabilities it should contain, Cleland said. They supported a design with separate layers and components that could accommodate additional products and growing payment volumes.
Fraud prevention and controls against financial crime were priorities for respondents, Cleland said. Some safeguards would sit outside the core, but the infrastructure needed to support effective controls from the outset.
Cleland said respondents agreed on the importance of security and reliable operations, including protection against cyber threats as artificial intelligence and other technologies develop. The core would connect to the central bank's Real-Time Gross Settlement service to settle payments in central bank money.
Common messaging, interfaces and technical standards would help different systems work together, Cleland said. Respondents also sought a safe transition, although planning that change required a clearer design of the infrastructure being built.
The core alone could not deliver successful payment services, Cleland said. Consumer protection, responsibility for losses, merchant acceptance, commercial incentives and access for vulnerable customers would need to develop alongside it.
Cleland said the board, its Design Authority, Delivery Company representatives and industry experts would now develop the blueprint together. Pay.UK would continue operating existing systems, while other payments innovation should continue and align with the planned infrastructure, she said.
