The Final Hurdle to Overcome in Achieving Payments Modernisation

A guest blog by Edward Ireland, Project Director at Bottomline.

The payments industry is poised for positive change across the whole ecosystem. While cross-border transactions have become faster and more transparent, the processes for handling exceptions and investigations (E&I) remain stuck in the past and are dominated by manual workflows and outdated messaging formats. This inefficiency is about to end. Swift’s introduction of ISO 20022-enabled Case Management represents a transformative leap toward automation, standardisation, and operational resilience.

Why Change Is Urgent

According to Swift, resolving a payment investigation can take five to ten days, even though most international payments settle within hours. The culprit? Legacy MT messages - free-form, unstructured formats that dominate over 72% of E&I communications (Swift E&I Transformation Report, April 2025). These messages were never designed for automation, forcing banks to rely on manual interpretation, repetitive data entry, and multiple follow-ups. The result is higher operational costs, increased risk of errors, and frustrated customers who lack visibility into payment status.

The State of E&I Today

Despite advances in payment speed, exception handling has not kept pace. Investigations often involve multiple intermediaries, incomplete data, and manual rekeying between systems. Each step adds delays and increases the risk of errors. Customers are left in the dark, leading to dissatisfaction and, in some cases, attrition. The financial impact is significant: higher operational costs, potential penalty fees, and reputational damage.

Key Benefits of Swift Case Management

Swift’s Case Management framework introduces a centralised, structured process for exception handling. Instead of sending unstructured messages through the payment chain, banks will now exchange structured ISO 20022 messages, via the Case Manager. Each message carries a unique end-to-end reference number, giving all parties visibility over its status in real time. Automated routing ensures cases reach the right party in a timely manner, removing the need for manual forwarding. The framework also supports API connectivity, enabling integration into existing workflows and systems rather than relying on manual portals. ISO 20022 is not just a messaging upgrade; it’s the foundation for automation and interoperability across the global payments ecosystem.

The Timeline You Can’t Ignore

Alongside the ongoing standard changes for ISO 20022, Swift has introduced a series of regulatory and operational updates designed to strengthen exception handling across global payments. One of the most significant among them is the upcoming mandate for Stop and Recall, a Swift Case Management service that lets a bank immediately halt and attempt to retrieve a payment after it has already been sent into the cross‑border payment chain.

From November 2026, all financial institutions will be required to use the Stop and Recall service within Swift Case Management for the submission and processing of payment cancellation requests.

Swift’s ISO 20022 mandate journey:

• 2024–2025: Early adopters begin implementation

• November 2026: Mandatory receipt of ISO 20022 case messages

• End of 2027: Full enforcement; MT199/299 messages retired

Banks that fail to meet these deadlines risk regulatory penalties and reputational damage. Waiting until 2027 is a false economy. Quick fixes like manual portals or message translators may seem convenient, but they add complexity, increase risk, and will ultimately need replacing).

The Business Case for Acting Now

ISO 20022-powered Case Management isn’t just about compliance: it’s about unlocking value. Estimates suggest adoption could reduce resolution times by up to 80%, saving the industry $600 million annually in operational costs (Swift Case Management Launch Data, April 2025). Early adopters are already seeing 3–5% revenue uplifts thanks to improved customer experience and faster case resolution (PaySpace Magazine, 2025).

Beyond efficiency, the competitive stakes are high. Research shows up to 35% of firms would redirect payments to banks offering ISO 20022-based visibility and proactive exception handling (Swift E&I Transformation Report, April 2025).

Reducing the cost and resolution times for exceptions will improve KPIs against the G20 Roadmap for cross-border payments. The gains will show up most clearly in the cost KPI, through lower operational overhead, and the speed KPI, by increasing the share of payments credited within a single business day.

Why Quick Fixes Fall Short

Some institutions may be tempted to implement temporary solutions such as manual portals, message translators, or spreadsheets to meet initial compliance requirements. These short-term measures only postpone the inevitable.

They keep legacy systems running but add operational complexity, increase manual effort, and introduce additional layers of risk. As full Case Management compliance becomes mandatory, those temporary tools will need to be replaced.

Worse, they create data fragmentation and add risk precisely where banks can least afford it - exception management. Quick fixes are a waste of time. They add complexity, slow things down and dilute the benefits of automation.

Partnering for Success

Transitioning to ISO 20022 requires more than technology - it demands specialist expertise. Banks must update workflows, integrate APIs, and ensure systems can send, receive, and interpret structured messages. This is where trusted partners make the difference.

Providers like Bottomline, one of the world’s leading Swift bureaus with over 35 years of experience, offer end-to-end support from project planning and testing to integration and automation. Our deep knowledge of Swift standards and ISO 20022 migration ensures banks can meet deadlines without disruption, while aligning Case Management with broader payment transformation initiatives.

A Catalyst for Modernisation

The November 2027 mandate is more than a regulatory milestone: it’s an opportunity to future-proof operations. By embedding Case Management into modern payment hubs and leveraging automation, banks can eliminate manual bottlenecks, improve auditability, and deliver the transparency customers expect.

Those who act now will not only comply, they’ll lead. They’ll transform exception handling from a cost centre into a source of competitive advantage, driving efficiency, resilience, and customer trust.

Key Takeaways

• ISO 20022 Case Management is the final piece of the jigsaw for payments modernisation

• All institutions are required to use the Stop and Recall service within Swift Case Management by November 2026

• Swift mandates full compliance to ISO 2022 by end of 2027—don’t wait until the last minute

• Acting early unlocks efficiency, cost savings, and competitive advantage

• Partnering with payments experts ensures a smooth transition and strategic alignment

More

This is a guest blog by Edward Ireland, Project Director at Bottomline.

The clock is ticking. Partner wisely, plan early, and turn compliance into a catalyst for growth. Act now by scheduling a 1:1 strategy workshop with a Bottomline expert.

Future-Proofing UK Payments

The UK payments landscape is entering a new era with the National Payments Vision and the Payments Vision Delivery Committee (PVDC) Strategy driving modernisation.

For banks and non-banking financial institutions this is more than a compliance exercise – it’s a strategic opportunity to lead in innovation, connectivity, and customer experience.

Listen to this expert panel to gain clarity on the UK’s payments transformation roadmap, learn practical steps to modernise infrastructure and stay competitive and discover how orchestration can reduce complexity and improve customer experience.

Watch the video

• Payments Messaging Evolution: How ISO 20022 and advanced messaging standards will enable richer data and smarter transactions that align with the G20’s high-level targets of Speed and Access (2027) and Transparency and Cost (2030).

• Connectivity in a Multi-Money Ecosystem: Seamless integration across multiple payment rails and incorporating alternative payment rails such as tokenised deposits, and stablecoins.

• Orchestration Strategies for Banks and NBFIs: Moving beyond legacy systems and building scalable, interoperable systems that support real-time payments and overlay services.

• Innovation and Resilience: Leveraging orchestration for fraud prevention, compliance, and operational stability.

  Watch the video

Speakers

• Riccardo Tordera-Ricchi, Director of Policy and Government Relations at the Payments Association

• Adrian Smyth, Product Development and Innovation at NatWest Group

• Edward Ireland, Product Director – Financial Messaging at Bottomline

• David Morris, COO at PAY.UK

• Mark Streather, Policy Lead – Payments at Bank of England

Watch the video

Payment Infrastructure (NewRPI) — but will it be the phoenix our industry needs? As the journey to a NewRPI commences we’ll be bringing insights, analysis, and conversations on the future of payments infrastructure in the United Kingdom.

Free from corporate or regulatory agendas, who is better placed to lead the discussion on the NewRPI than Mike Chambers — the driving force behind NewBacs, Faster Payments adoption and part of the original NewCHAPS journey.

Tell Me More!

Maximising Liquidity and Cash Visibility: Strategies for Banks and NBFIs

Listen to Bottomline and Strategic Treasurer as they explore why so many institutions still struggle with cash visibility despite operating in a 24/7/365 payments world.

• 34% of institutions have a single consolidated view of cash.

• 45% have some automation, but not enough for real-time decision making.

• 21% continue to rely on manual spreadsheets.

• And 50% say disparate internal systems remain the biggest barrier to progress.

^{Source: The Future of Competitive Advantage in Banking and Payments report.}

If improving liquidity visibility or modernising treasury operations is on your radar this year, then you can’t afford to miss this session.

Watch the video

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Keep on Running

In our third Faster Payments newsletter from Jeremy Light’s Agenda:Payments newsletter we explore what’s next for Faster Payments in the UK - huge thanks to Jeremy for allowing Payments:Unpacked to feature this guest blog.

Be sure to subscribe to Jeremy’s excellent Agenda: Payments newsletter at:

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The UK’s Faster Payments system (FPS) has had a profound impact on consumer and business payments. As the only system of its kind when it launched in 2008, it led the way in real-time payment adoption which has become ubiquitous globally.

The UK may rank only 22 in the 2024 real-time payments per capita index I compiled with 69 countries last year¹ but it understates the effect FPS has had in influencing the decisions, design, implementations and operation of the 40+ real-time interbank payment systems running today.

What is this impact in the UK and the world, what have we learnt from FPS and what comes next?

UK Impact

FPS processes more than 12% of all payments in the UK by volume of transactions (including cash), up from around 3% 10 years ago, as shown in Figure 1. Over the same period, UK payment volume has grown 34% - driven in large part by contactless debit cards but also by FPS. Faster Payments growth has been due to much more than just substitution of cheque and bill payments through Bacs.

Cheque volumes are down 470m payments in annual volume since 2016 and Bacs direct credits are down 276m payments². Meanwhile, Faster Payments are up 5bn payments over the period. It has created its own payment domain that is fuelled by the atomisation of payments – paying more often in smaller amounts³.

Figure 1 – Faster Payments volume share of UK payments (including on-us payments)

After contactless debit card and non-contactless debit card payments, FPS is the third largest source of payments by volume in the UK. See Figure 2.

Figure 2 – Volume share of UK payments (excluding CHAPS – 0.1%; including on-us online banking payments in the Faster Payments figure)

FPS also has had a major impact on the success of the Fintech challengers, such as Clearbank, Monzo, Revolut, Wise and Starling. Clearbank launched in 2017 as a direct participant of FPS and as an access provider for indirect participants, enabling it from the start to differentiate itself from the established sponsor banks with a real-time 24/7 offering to agency banks and PSPs. Monzo, Revolut, Wise and Starling launched to provide a better, modern, digital-first customer experience for cross-border payments and bank accounts. Making this experience real-time with real-time payments and balance updates was critical to their propositions.

Global Impact

Today, there are around 40 – 50 countries with real-time interbank clearing and settlement systems and they keep coming on stream – the most recent is the METIX/SPIM system in Mozambique launched last month (3^rd March)⁴. The experience of the FPS and insights from it have had a major influence on many of these systems around the world.

For some, the influence has been direct, where Vocalink has provided technology support, including software it developed for export (before being acquired by Mastercard). Vocalink software powers PromptPay in Thailand, FAST in Singapore and RTP at The Clearing House in the USA (and possibly others). This software has proved itself, with Thailand number three in the global real-time payments per capita index I compiled last year (footnote 1) and Singapore at number four.

Lessons from Faster Payments

The past 18 years of Faster Payments operation have provided many lessons for the payments industry.

Perhaps the most important is that the value proposition for real-time payments is certainty with immediacy, rather than just immediacy. Immediacy is obviously essential for situations such as when selling goods and services but less so when paying, for example an electricity bill.

However, immediate certainty that a payment is received and final is a critical feature for all real-time payments – an immediate confirmation means no waiting, no checking a payment has gone through, no reconciliation (of payments received to payments expected), no chasing, no estimating (of cashflows and balances), no tracing, no investigation, no missing payments. The impact of immediate payment certainty on the user experience and on business capabilities is profound.

Other lessons include:

1. Reliability of the core engine is critical – FPS has run continuously for 18 years with just one short hiccup. Its fault tolerant, nonstop architecture has been a bedrock underpinning its success.

2. Versatility drives adoption – FPS is versatile through supporting synchronous (real-time) and asynchronous payments (standing orders, forward dated, corporate direct) with one connection, which facilitated the transition from legacy in the early days and makes the system attractive for multiple uses by multiple participants today.

3. Indirect participation in a real-time payment system needs to have real-time, 24/7 connectivity and processes, otherwise the benefits of real-time payments are lost. The traditional batch model of indirect participation is unsuitable.

4. Settlement accounts held at the central bank by non-banks help level the playing field for new entrants and non-banks, as evidenced by the demand for them in the UK. Real-time payments require active intraday liquidity management (prefunding in the UK) and settlement accounts improve liquidity control and efficiency for participants.

5. Open access to the core engine promotes competition and levels the playing field. FPS’s New Access Model allows direct connectivity to the central infrastructure through technical aggregators and has been a big success, creating a competitive market and strong network effects that have driven volume.

6. Real-time payments allow supply chains to be reinvented – just-in-time payments that are real-time, speed up supply chains and improve efficiency e.g. by enabling just-in-time ordering that reduces/eliminates inventory.

7. Real-time payments have exposed weaknesses in financial crime controls. Authorised push payments fraud (APP) has become a problem as FPS usage has increased. Real-time payments mean fraudulent payments can be received and forwarded instantly, well before victims realise they have been scammed and before banks can investigate. This is an account management problem rather than a payments problem and it has meant that banks have needed to strengthen their controls to prevent the opening of fraudulent accounts and to identify compromised accounts. APP fraud in the UK is under control but it is still significant.

8. Regulators need to act quickly to innovation, as well as be open-minded - for example, non-bank settlement accounts are segregated, single purpose, prefunded, relatively low balance accounts and pose little risk to financial stability (and are different to reserve accounts). The Bank of England deserves credit for being open-minded in pioneering non-bank settlement accounts and has led in the world in implementing them. Yet it still took over four years to agree and implement them on its RTGS, delaying the significant impact these accounts have made in the UK, despite their low risk and large benefits.

A final lesson to highlight is that real-time payments systems like FPS can be a foundation for innovation and overlay services. This is seen more in other countries such as India, with UPI. UPI is an overlay service on the IMPS real-time payment system which is similar to FPS. Built on a fault-tolerant, nonstop system based on card/ATM technology, IMPS processes about 1.4% of electronic payments in India, compared to FPS’s 13% (excluding cash) in the UK. However, IMPS enables the UPI overlay service which processes 86% of electronic payments in India, 20bn per month. FPS has overlay services like confirmation of payee but unfortunately it lacks one for consumer payments like UPI in India or PayNow in Singapore.

In my opinion, this has been a missed opportunity for FPS so far, which is why despite being a pioneer and a stalwart in real-time payments, other countries such as India and Singapore have forged ahead.

FPS Future

FPS has been in operation for 18 years and is likely to continue for many more. There have been plans to upgrade or replace it going back to 2015, including the New Payments Architecture, a grand projet which has been discontinued – FPS has survived them all.

Now, UK regulators have come up with a different approach, the Interbank Infrastructure Renewal programme under the National Payments Vision, with a focus on resilience and innovation.

FPS, with its fault-tolerant, nonstop architecture ticks the resilience box in spades. There are incremental improvements needed, such as certainty of fate rules (recently clarified⁵) to help with open banking payments at POS and for ecommerce; potential liquidity improvements when the Bank of England starts extending RTGS opening hours⁶; and perhaps a move to implement the (often misunderstood) ISO20022 data standard.

However, it is on the innovation side where FPS has the most potential.

As I have hinted in the previous section, the biggest innovation FPS could enable is an overlay service similar to UPI in India. Figure 3 outlines how this might look, with a separate scheme and operation I have termed the “UK Interoperable Payments Interface (UKIPI)”, built for interoperability and inclusivity, to link into FPS, with open banking for domestic payments and with stablecoins for international payments.

Figure 3 – a UPI overlay for the UK?

Such an overlay service would open up UK payments to all players big and small, new and established, competing on a level playing field to provide wallet services, including real-time payments domestically and internationally. A core component would be a database of virtual addresses that allows any certified application or wallet with standard authentication to initiate and route payments from any bank or wallet to any other bank or wallet, enabling competition on wallet services and user experience.

If a service like UKIPI was implemented, it would generate 12bn transactions a year, double FPS current volume, if it were to match UPI on a per capita basis.

Overlay services are highlighted in the National Payments Infrastructure Strategy⁷, so expect to see more on them as the delivery of the National Payments Vision takes shape. Whatever form they take, user-centric overlay services are likely to be a key feature in the future of FPS.

The overlay service in Figure 3 is just one possible form, a later article on overlays will explain it in more detail, for the UK and more generically.

Conclusion

In this article and the previous two, I have explained FPS’s progress and successes since launch 18 years ago – it is an impressive story.

I would hope that Pay.UK and Vocalink mark its 18^th birthday in style on 27 May 26 and raise a glass or two to themselves and all those who have made FPS an enduring success.

To-date, FPS has processed around 38bn payments and is likely to process a similar volume over the next five years. How it will be taken forward in the Interbank Infrastructure Renewal programme is unclear but for certain, for many years to come, FPS will keep on running.

Jeremy Light

Huge thanks to Jeremy Light for allowing Payments:Unpacked to feature “Keep on Running” as a guest blog.

Be sure to subscribe to Jeremy’s excellent Agenda: Payments newsletter at:

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1 Real-time payments per capita index 2024:

Agenda: Payments

Mirror, Mirror On the Wall, Who is Fairest of Them All?

Since late April I have written six articles benchmarking the adoption of real-time payments in different regions of the world, covering 69 countries (including the 20 in the Euro zone). There are a further 19 countries (listed at the end) which I believe have real-time payment systems but have no published data and are excluded from the analysis…

Read more

9 months ago · Jeremy Light

2 Using my estimates for 2025 and UK Finance data for 2016.

3 Atomisation of payments:

Agenda: Payments

Got a Lot o' Payin' to Do

Seven years ago, I wrote two articles on the atomisation of payments…

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a year ago · 1 like · 3 comments · Jeremy Light

4 Mozambique instant payments https://aimnews.org/2026/03/03/bank-of-mozambique-launches-instant-payment-system/

5 FPS certainty of fate rule clarification: https://www.wearepay.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Pay.UK-CoF-Proposed-Rule-Clarification-January-2026.pdf

6 Bank of England RTGS early morning extension: https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/paper/2026/ps/extending-rtgs-and-chaps-settlement-hours-early-morning-extension

7 National Payments Infrastructure Strategy: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/690de7a247ad122f854627bf/PVDC_Strategy.pdf

Payments:Unpacked | On A (Slight) Tangent - Unscripted and unedited

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In this newsletter we explore 18 Years of UK Faster Payments transactions plus forecasts to 2030 with a guest blog from Jeremy Light - huge thanks to Jeremy for allowing Payments:Unpacked to feature this guest blog.

Be sure to subscribe to Jeremy’s excellent Agenda: Payments newsletter at:

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18 Years of UK Faster Payments Transactions plus Forecasts to 2030

The UK’s Faster Payments system (FPS) turns eighteen this year. In recognition, last week I outlined how FPS developed and this week I cover the story of its transactions since 2008, with forecasts to 2030.

Real-time payment systems like FPS are common today but prior to 2008 there were none. Few bankers at the time believed there was much need for real-time, a view that still persists in some quarters today, the world-over. Europe, for example had to introduce legislation last year to force banks to provide real-time payments.

The FPS statistics show the doubters were (and are) mistaken - FPS stepped into the unknown at launch and discovered quickly it had tapped into a rich seam of hidden consumer and business demand, creating a new way of paying that has changed banking forever.

Faster Payments Transactions

Faster Payments has four transaction types:

• Single Immediate Payments (SIPs) are real-time payments, usually submitted anytime 24/7 through online and mobile banking (including using open banking). SIPs are synchronous and start and end with directly connected participants. Indirect participants initiate and receive SIPs through their sponsoring direct participant (indirect access provider).

• Standing Order Payments (SOPs) are recurring payments for subscriptions, rent, mortgage payments etc. SOPs are asynchronous payments, submitted by banks via batch processing overnight after midnight and before the start of day on business days, with 90%+ submitted before 6 am. Once submitted, they are credited immediately to the beneficiary. It may seem odd to submit batch files into a real-time engine but this was a key driver for FPS. Previously, standing orders were submitted through Bacs causing a three-day+ delay between the payer account debit and payee account credit.

• Forward Dated Payments (FDPs) are asynchronous payments held by the payer’s bank to submit at a date in the future. The payer’s bank can choose to submit the payment at any time on the due date (e.g. to help smooth intraday liquidity) but are expected to submit them with SOPs (if a SOP submitter). FDPs are targeted at business payments and feature on business banking apps e.g. to schedule payments up to 31 days ahead.

• Returns are separate payments that reference a previous SIP payment that is being returned e.g. because an account is closed or frozen and the receiving bank/PSP is unable to credit the original payment to it. The decision to initiate a return is a bank/PSP decision based on their policies rather than on FPS rules. Additionally, the central infrastructure initiates returns for asynchronous payments (SOP, FDP), including those submitted by corporates using DCA (direct corporate access), that a participant has received and rejected.

Each of these different FPS transaction types are processed in the same central infrastructure and they all require sufficient pre-funding in the sending institution’s settlement account to clear. The scheme rules for each are different, for example for acceptance into processing and for prioritisation (SIPs are usually highest priority).

Volumes and Value History

After the 2008 launch, most of the payments through Faster Payments were SOPs. Banks simply began diverting SOPs from submission to the BACS system to FPS. However, demand for SIPs was strong right from the start. There were 36m SIPs in 2008 in the seven months after launch followed by 109m SIPs in 2009 compared to 157m SOPs. SIPs volumes were 380m in 2012 sailing past SOP volumes at 300m and ever since SIPs have been the dominant transaction type. In 2025, SIPs accounted for 87% of all FPS payments and outnumber SOPs by a factor 12.

The volume history of all payment types, apart from returns (just 0.1% of the 2025 total), is shown in Figure 1 with a forecast to 2030. Since 2009, total FPS volumes have grown at a CAGR of 20%. Within this, SIPs have grown with a CAGR of 27%.

Figure 1 – Faster Payments volumes per payment type (excluding returns)

FDPs were also adopted strongly. In volume terms they are comparable to SOPs, with a similar level of volume since 2021. However, in value terms FDPs are much higher value on average than SIPs and SOPs, accounting for 26% of value in 2025 (7% by volume), indicating their extensive use in business payments.

Figure 2 shows the growth of value processed (adjusted for inflation) by payment type, with a forecast to 2030, again dominated by SIPs followed by FDPs. Since 2009, total FPS values (inflation adjusted) have grown at a CAGR of 22%. The SIPs component has a CAGR of 24%.

Figure 2 – Faster Payments transacted value by payment type (excluding returns)

Figure 2 shows a jump in value in 2012 from £402bn to £1trn (inflation adjusted to 2025 – or, in nominal terms, from £235bn to £618bn), also seen, less pronounced, in volume terms in Figure 1. This was due to the first Payment Service Directive (PSD – implemented as the PSR 2009 in the UK) which came into force on 1 Jan 2012. It required all payments to be cleared on the receiver’s account by the end of the next business day at the latest. The only practical way for UK banks to achieve this was to use FPS, causing a strong rise in FPS volume and value that year.

The scale of this rise can be seen in Figure 3 which shows the SIP annual volume growth rates.

Figure 3 – Faster SIP annual volume growth rates

Figure 3 shows that after the initial high growth of the early years, SIP volume growth spiked in 2012 to 60% due to the PSD, followed by a second smaller spike of 28% in 2018. This second spike was due to the New Access Model which started in 2015, drawing in and enabling new entrants, particularly in 2017 and 2018, that have contributed significantly to SIP volume growth. New banks included Clearbank, Monzo and Starling and new EMIs included Revolut (now a bank) and Transferwise (now Wise). These new banks and EMIs recognised the importance of real-time payments to their digital propositions and have been core drivers of SIP growth.

Overall, SIPs annual growth is on a downward trend and is likely to become pedestrian by 2030 unless FPS (or any successor) is used to support new sources of payments, for example account-to-account retail transactions at POS and ecommerce. Open banking is the great hope for this but has yet to ignite. It started in 2018 and has gradually gained traction but with 351m (mainly SIP) payments in 2025, it accounted for just 7% of SIPs volume last year and has still to make a big difference to SIP volume growth.

Average Transaction Values

The average FPS transaction value was £872 in 2025. This is far above the average credit card and debit card transaction of between £30 and £50, highlighting that FPS is little used in retail⁹ payments at the moment.

Average transaction values (inflation adjusted) of the different payment types are shown in Figure 4. In 2025, SIPs averaged £727, SOPs £297 and FDs £3,068 per payment. The increase in transaction limits (to £100k in 2010, £250k in 2015 and £1m in 2021) appears have had no measurable effect on these average values.

Figure 4 – Faster Payments payment type average transaction value by year (adjusted by RPI)

The average transaction value of returns has been above that for SIPs and SOPs for some time and for some reason started to rise rapidly after 2021, reaching £5,329 in 2025. It is possible that returns are concentrated in FDPs which have much higher transaction values. The increase of the limit to £1m in 2021 could be a reason but seems unlikely given the extra care normally taken when paying large values.

Figure 5 shows that the volume of returns as a proportion of SIP and FDP payments volumes stood at just over 0.1% in 2025 and has reduced steadily from a high of almost 0.5% in 2009. Probably, this reflects the steady strengthening of bank controls over time, reducing the incidence of cleared but unapplied payments. It also suggests that the proportion of payments from/to indirect participants with non-real time connections has fallen substantially over time.

Figure 5 – percentage of SIP and forward dated transactions that lead to a return

FPS Transaction Capacity

A key strength of FPS is its versatility, supporting different transaction types, submitted as single or bulk transactions, synchronous and asynchronous. To illustrate, assuming 51% of SIPs are paid during business hours and that, say 75% of SOPs are processed in the same two hour window overnight, the average throughput measured as transactions per second (TPS) can be estimated easily for each year of operation, as illustrated in Figure 6.

Figure 6 – estimates of average FPS transactions per second based on published transaction volumes

Figure 6 shows that on average the TPS capacity required for SOPs was much higher than for SIPs until around 2020, even though SOPs volumes are much lower than SIPs – due to the much tighter window for processing SOPs. As a result, SOPs have forced FPS to have more TPS capacity than it needed for SIPs in the first 10 years or so, which has contributed to FPS’s resilience and reliability.

It is also worth noting the relatively modest figure of 350 TPS in 2025. This is only a very approximate average and there will be peaks requiring much higher TPS. However, it is far below the TPS required by card networks which can run into 1,000s, illustrating how FPS has room to scale to a considerably higher capacity if required.

Conclusion

From the start, instant payments were in strong demand. FPS volumes were driven initially by SOPs, standing orders migrated from BACS but soon immediate payments, SIPs, took over. In value terms, SIPs overtook SOPs in 2009 and in volume terms, in 2012.

By 2015 it became obvious that real-time payments were a prerequisite for modern bank accounts and online/mobile banking, just as challengers such as Clearbank, Monzo, Revolut, Starling and Wise made a timely arrival onto the UK banking scene. These challengers benefited significantly from their access to FPS real-time payments.

Growth was boosted in 2012 by the initial PSD regulation and again in 2017/18 by the success of the New Access Model. Overall, FPS has grown at CAGRs of 27% (volume) and 24% (inflation-adjusted value) since 2009 to 5.5bn payments in 2025, with £4.8trn transacted. I forecast these to reach 7.3bn payments and £6.9trn in 2030.

These figures show that FPS is used primarily for relatively high value consumer and business payments – rent, mortgages, bills, payroll etc and has yet to be used at scale for account-to-account retail payments at POS and ecommerce. This may come with open banking but until it does, FPS growth may slow to 5% or lower by 2030.

In total, FPS has processed 38bn payments since launch up to the end of 2025 and £39trn (inflation adjusted) in value. My forecasts suggest it will process another 34bn payments and another £31trn over the next five years to 2030 (including 2026).

FPS has proved to be versatile by being able to process bulk payments submitted in batch to its central infrastructure as well as processing single real-time payments. This architecture has allowed FPS to fit into the legacy payments landscape and has made it easier for banks to absorb real-time payments into their operations.

FPS’s versatility together with its reliability have unleashed real-time payments into the UK and into the world and is a key reason why FPS is still around today.

18 years of sustained product-market fit, a huge achievement.

Jeremy Light

Huge thanks to Jeremy Light for allowing Payments:Unpacked to feature 18 Years of UK Faster Payments transactions plus forecasts to 2030 as a guest blog.

Be sure to subscribe to Jeremy’s excellent Agenda: Payments newsletter at:

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Payment Infrastructure (NewRPI) — but will it be the phoenix our industry needs? As the journey to a NewRPI commences we’ll be bringing insights, analysis, and conversations on the future of payments infrastructure in the United Kingdom.

Free from corporate or regulatory agendas, who is better placed to lead the discussion on the NewRPI than Mike Chambers — the driving force behind NewBacs, Faster Payments adoption and part of the original NewCHAPS journey.

Tell Me More!

Mastercard Explores Sale of Nets Real-Time Payments Business

This evening (26 March 2026 20:42) Finextra have reported - citing coverage from the Financial Times - that Mastercard is seeking to offload the real-time payments business it acquired from Danish firm Nets in 2019 for $3.2 billion.

According to the report, Mastercard has engaged investment bankers to manage the sale process, with private equity firms emerging as likely bidders. While the payments giant has declined to comment publicly, sources suggest the divestment effort is already underway.

The business line in question generates approximately $370 million in annual revenue and around $100 million in EBITDA. However, market expectations indicate that any eventual sale price may fall significantly short of the original acquisition cost, reflecting shifting valuations and competitive pressures in the real-time payments space.

Mastercard’s original acquisition of Nets’ payments business was a strategic move to strengthen its position in the rapidly evolving real-time payments ecosystem. At the time, the company aimed to counter the growing threat of account-to-account payment solutions encroaching on traditional card networks. This acquisition complemented its earlier purchase of UK-based Vocalink, further reinforcing its infrastructure capabilities.

Despite remaining Mastercard’s largest acquisition to date, the company continues to invest in emerging payment technologies. Most recently, it agreed to a $1.8 billion deal to acquire stablecoin infrastructure provider BVNK - highlighting its ongoing strategy to diversify beyond conventional card-based systems.

For full details and ongoing updates, visit the Finextra coverage of this developing story.

Offloading Real Time Payments?

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Maximising Collections to Deliver Business Value: A Modern Direct Debit Imperative

As the UK payments landscape evolves, businesses must adapt quickly to regulatory updates and emerging best practices. In his blog, Mark Bish highlights how recent changes introduced by Pay.UK present a valuable opportunity for organisations to strengthen their Direct Debit (DD) processes, reduce fraud, and enhance customer experience.

A key update to the DD rules (version 5.8) enables businesses to challenge indemnity claims under reason code 4—previously not permitted—if applied incorrectly. This change is expected to significantly reduce fraudulent claims while offering greater protection to service users. At the same time, the updated framework reinforces the importance of robust customer onboarding, with stricter expectations around validation and verification to ensure compliance and avoid potential sanctions.

Operational inefficiencies remain a challenge across the industry. Many businesses continue to experience avoidable payment failures due to inaccurate or outdated account details, as well as reliance on manual exception handling processes. The blog emphasises the importance of improving these areas through automation and regular account revalidation to reduce costs and increase collection success rates.

A major advancement comes through the widespread adoption of Confirmation of Payee, which now enables near real-time verification of account ownership across hundreds of financial institutions. When implemented at the point of data capture, this significantly improves accuracy, reduces errors, and enhances the overall customer journey.

Finally, the blog underscores the growing need for secure data management. Moving away from storing sensitive bank details across multiple systems—towards tokenisation or centralised platforms—can reduce fraud risk and improve internal controls.

Overall, the message is clear: with increased regulatory scrutiny and better tools available, businesses must modernise their Direct Debit operations. By strengthening verification, automating processes, and improving data security, organisations can future-proof their collections strategy and unlock greater business value.

Read the full blog:

Maximising Collections

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Trailblazer

Today we explore the story of the UK’s Faster Payments System / Scheme / Service with a guest blog from Jeremy Light’s Agenda:Payments newsletter.

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The story of the UK’s Faster Payments System

The UK’s Faster Payments system was the world’s first modern real-time interbank payments system. It went live on 27 May 2008 and turns eighteen this year.

Real-time account-to-account payments are ubiquitous today throughout the world but eighteen years ago they were unchartered territory - no-one knew if there was any need for them. Launching Faster Payments was a bold step into the unknown.

Why did the UK implement Faster Payments and how does it look today after eighteen years of operation?

To answer these questions, over three articles Jeremy Light looks back at Faster Payments’ progress and consider the impact Faster Payments has made in the UK and beyond:

1. This article – the Faster Payments story since launch in 2008

And we’ll follow with:

2. Faster Payments volume/value growth history and forecasts

3. The impact of UK Faster Payments on the global payments industry and on UK payments.

Faster Payments Origins

In the early 2000s, UK interbank payments operated on a three-day cycle and the UK banks were under pressure from the government (Office of Fair Trading) to speed them up¹.

In response, the UK banks toyed with a proposal to reduce the three-day cycle to same-day or next-day but in the end opted for real-time. They saw an opportunity to re-use existing technology in place for ATM withdrawals and debit card authorisations that was real-time². Also, they concluded that by going for real-time, they eliminated the risk of the government applying further pressure later on to speed up payments even more.

The project to design and implement Faster Payments started in 2005 and was driven by APACS³, the banking trade association for payments at the time.

Launch

The original launch date for November 2007 was pushed back to May 2008. All participating banks had to go live together but some were struggling to meet delivery milestones. This reflected the complexity of the programme and some requirements were dropped along the way to keep delivery on track.

The biggest casualties were the agency banks which historically used a sponsor bank⁴ to manage payments through clearing systems on their behalf. As the major banks went full throttle to meet the APACS deadlines, agency banks became a low priority. The net result was that payments from/to agency banks would be processed by their sponsor bank every two hours rather than in real-time – this situation still persists today but there are alternatives which will be covered later.

Corporates were also affected by descoping. Initially, most banks planned to offer Direct Corporate Access (DCA) to Faster Payments, using Bacstel-IP⁵ to allow corporates to submit bulk payments directly into the central infrastructure. However, only Barclays implemented the service from the start and this was constrained by a £10,000 transaction limit⁶ which was too low to be of much use for many corporates.

The central infrastructure for Faster Payments was built by Vocalink who continue to operate it today (from within Mastercard, which acquired Vocalink in 2017). Vocalink was formed from Voca, which operated the batch clearing systems and Link⁷ which operated the ATM network. Faster Payments was built on technology similar to that used in the Link network.

The Early Days

After launch, APACS handed over management of Faster Payments to CHAPS. At the end of 2011, FPS Ltd (FPSL) was set up to manage the scheme and the contract with Vocalink, taking over from CHAPS. An interim CEO led FPSL until a permanent CEO was appointed in June 2012. The board of FPSL was made up of appointees from banks and, in line with industry best practice (PFMI principles), an independent chair and independent directors were appointed to the board in 2013.

FPSL transitioned into Pay.UK (together with Bacs and cheque clearing) in May 2018, which continues today to manage the Faster Payments scheme and contract with Vocalink.

Faster Payments was launched without fanfare⁸. Few banks had much idea of how it would be used or what the demand would be outside of standing orders. Although one bank made a point by making a £100 donation on the stroke of midnight on the launch date to the Disaster Emergency Committee to demonstrate money can move in real-time for crisis-response.

However, to this day, I am unaware of any consumer marketing by any bank for its Faster Payments service. Even now, 14 years after UK banks were required to use Faster Payments for online banking to meet the original PSD regulations, the vast majority of invoices and bills issued by businesses still have payment instructions that refer incorrectly to Bacs rather than to Faster Payments. The majority of the UK population seem to be familiar with the Bacs brand but have no or little knowledge of Faster Payments.

In 2008, real-time payments were so new to the industry and different to how banks previously operated, that Faster Payments took a few years to bed down properly. Although the central infrastructure operated 24/7, initially some banks connected to it only on a near-continuous basis. Participants were required to receive Faster Payments 24/7 from the start but it took a while for some to get going on the sending side. Some banks were unable to support out-of-hours processing and those that did still had overnight restrictions and downtime windows. Additionally, some used the SWIFT network to connect to the central infrastructure, locking themselves into SWIFT’s maintenance schedule, which routinely meant they had no Faster Payments connectivity for long periods over the weekend.

Gradually, scheme rules and infrastructure improved and progressively banks upgraded their systems and processes (e.g. for liquidity management to prefund settlement accounts efficiently). It was probably around 2011/2012 that Faster Payments became properly 24/7, real-time for most users.

As Faster Payments matured, the transaction limit was raised, first from £10,000 to £100,000 in 2010, to £250,000 in 2015 and to £1m in 2021 where it remains today.

The Faster Payments New Access Model

Over 18 years the Faster Payments system has matured with incremental enhancements - governance and rules have been tweaked (e.g. the limit changes), overlay services⁹ such as Confirmation of Payee and Request to Pay have been enabled and financial crime solutions such as the anti-money laundering Mule Insights Tactical Solution (MITS) and Corporate Fraud Insights have been added.

However, the Faster Payments architecture and scheme rules are fundamentally the same today as at launch.

One key development which has had the biggest impact on adoption and usage is the New Access Model, developed to provide a level playing field for PSPs wishing to offer real-time payment services.

In its early days, there were just four sponsor banks¹⁰ that provided indirect access to Faster Payments. This was a core business for them, established over many years for access to the Bacs, CHAPS and cheque clearing systems. The batch operations and technology needed for these systems were unsuited to Faster Payments real-time operations. However, none offered a real-time service to PSPs, only a two-hour service, the maximum time delay allowed by the scheme.

Faster Payments opted for a competitive model where PSPs requiring real-time payments could connect directly to the central infrastructure using technical aggregators instead of through a sponsor bank. The PSP would still need a bank to settle on its behalf but this could be any bank with a settlement account at the Bank of England, rather than one of the established sponsor banks. The idea was a technical aggregator could process transactions for multiple PSPs giving scale economies, allowing them to offer a lower cost per transaction than a sponsor bank. At the time, FPSL estimated a PSP with 1.4m to 13m real-time payments per year would benefit from using a technical aggregator instead of directly connecting itself.

It worked!

FPSL set up a Vendor Participation Programme in 2015 to encourage vendors to develop access solutions and a PSP Participation Programme to encourage PSPs to find and use a technical aggregator. FPSL had a target of three accredited vendors by the end of 2015 and 12 new PSPs by the end of 2016. Today there are ten accredited vendors ¹¹ and 38 new (since 2014) directly connected PSPs¹².

In parallel, FPSL worked with the Bank of England (BoE) on its proposal for non-bank PSPs to open settlement accounts, so that PSPs could prefund their real-time payments directly at the BoE rather than through a settlement sponsor. This gave PSPs full control over their intraday liquidity management and eliminated settlement dependency on other banks.

Adoption of this proposal was deferred from 2014 but in 2018 Transferwise (now Wise) became the first non-bank to get a settlement account, on 13 April 2018¹³. As a result, as shown in the heading diagram, there are two types of direct participants – settling participants who have a settlement account at the BoE and are directly connected to the central infrastructure; and non-settling participants who are directly connected but use another bank with a settlement account to settle on their behalf.

Neither the BoE nor Pay.UK publish a list of non-banks with settlement accounts but Pay.UK does publish a list of direct participants (footnote 12) which contains 15 non-banks (EMIs and payment institutions). I expect that many of these may have settlement accounts at the BoE, including Modulr, an EMI which also is the only non-bank providing indirect access services to other PSPs.

One restriction on opening settlement accounts was the limited availability of “go-live” weekends using the BoE’s RTGS system which holds the accounts. With the new RT2 RTGS implemented in April last year, this constraint should disappear and the opening of settlement accounts should accelerate.

Overall, the New Access Model was a success and has enabled a more level playing field for PSPs. A vibrant ecosystem is in place (see the heading diagram) where bank and non-bank PSPs have competitive offerings for real-time payments, with a set of accredited vendors competing to enable those offerings.

Conclusion

In 2008, launching Faster Payments was a leap into the unknown. Real-time interbank clearing systems may be common across many countries now but most have been implemented in the past ten years with the benefit of learning from the early adopters¹⁴. In contrast, the UK’s Faster Payments had a blank sheet and was driven by government pressure rather than by a vision.

However, it has worked out well.

Faster Payments is still operating after 18 years using an architecture and rules that are much the same as at launch and volume is still growing at over 10% annually. This is a testament to the strong product-market fit it achieved from the start and which continues today.

To my knowledge, Faster Payments has had only one serious outage¹⁵ in otherwise continuous operation, 24 hours a day for 18 years. This is a testament to the robustness and reliability of the design of the central infrastructure built and operated by Vocalink.

I’ll cover key learnings in a later article but one learning is that the traditional topologies for indirect access to clearing that have served multiple ACH and RTGS systems in many countries for decades are unsuitable for high volume, real-time, 24/7 clearing. Direct access is necessary.

As its eighteenth birthday nears, it is clear Faster Payments needs an upgrade to meet the needs of the digital economy.

However, without doubt it is correct to say Faster Payments has been a true trailblazer in real-time payments.

Agenda Payments

Huge thanks to Jeremy Light for this guest blog - be sure to subscribe to Jeremy’s excellent Agenda: Payments newsletter at:

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Addenda - added 22 Mar 26

1. A practitioner at the heart of a sponsor bank’s Faster Payments (intense) programme in 2008 (and prior) has provided this interesting clarification:

   “The indirect model (from the existing 4 sponsor banks) was in the competitive space, and access via a sponsor was done in several ways. My bank offered SWIFT MT103 which gave near real time speed on a 24/6.66 basis (SWIFT maintenance window for 6 hours every Sunday) and as an alternative, Standard18 file upload/download whereby each agency bank could select which hour(s) they wanted to receive credit information - so could be hourly 24/7 or any frequency down to 1 per day. Also sponsor banks offered access via their own direct channels with real time advices etc. The biggest issue was that (at the time) very few agency banks could handle more frequent files than daily as their back end platforms were designed to consume daily Bacs files and not real time. So capability was provided by (some) clearing/sponsor banks but not consumable due to legacy infrastructure at the agencies.”

2. I expect that all Faster Payments sponsors, or Indirect Access Providers use settlement accounts at the BoE, therefore they are settling participants in the Faster Payments scheme. However, since no information is published on direct participants who use settlement accounts, I have shown IAPs straddling both settling and non-settling direct participants in the diagram above.

   ---

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A guest blog by Vitus Rotzer, Chief Product Officer – Financial Messaging Global at Bottomline.

Unlocking Operational Efficiency

Being compliant with operational efficiency requirements for core banking systems is as difficult as it sounds, and it’s a pressing matter that banks and financial institutions need help with.

Based on a survey of more than 230 C-level executives from banks and FIs, Bottomline’s 2025 annual global report, “The Future of Competitive Advantage in Banking and Payments,” finds that 91% of banks and other FIs said that it would be ‘very challenging’ or ‘challenging’ to remain compliant with industry mandates over the next 12 months. And the surprises don’t stop there.

Keeping up with regulations is challenging due to juggling already busy roadmaps, launching new fraud prevention tools such as Verification of Payee as part of the SEPA Inst mandate in the EU, all whilst continuing to meet customer expectations for innovation and solid operational efficiency.

Legacy infrastructure exacerbates these obstacles, with 40% of surveyed institutions citing outdated systems as the largest barrier to real-time payments, and 31% noting the hindrance they cause with regulatory compliance. Operational resilience remains a key concern, with 37% of respondents emphasising the importance of alternative payment methods to prevent primary system failures.

Modernisation is a priority, as expected, with 32% of respondents focusing on new payment channels and another 32% enhancing cross-border strategies. SaaS models accelerate regulatory compliance by offering automated solutions, enabling banks to stay ahead of the curve and address these multifaceted challenges.

Rising transaction volumes and evolving customer expectations around B2B payments illuminate the inadequacies of traditional banking infrastructures. This gap has led to a mass migration toward scalable, flexible, and resilient solutions in the cloud, with Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) core banking platforms becoming the preferred choice for enabling operational efficiency, compliance, and resilience in what remains a fast-paced payments landscape.

Linking Regulation to Operational Resilience

An evolving regulatory environment compels financial institutions to adopt systems that can keep pace with rapidly changing rules and regulations. Regulatory frameworks such as the FCA’s Operational Resilience Requirements and the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) underscore the importance of embedding operational resilience within organisational ecosystems.

SaaS models can accelerate regulatory compliance and help banks stay ahead of the curve by using automated solutions. A growing regulatory burden also highlights the urgent need for banks and FIs to transition from legacy systems that restrict adaptability and speed.

Interestingly, despite the pressures of compliance, the study revealed that only 22% of financial institutions prioritise security as a core concern. This gap reflects a misunderstanding of the integral role security plays in achieving operational resilience and efficiency.

Pain Points Addressed by SaaS

Financial institutions face numerous pain points that cloud-based models can effectively address. Legacy systems continue to be identified as the largest obstacle to modernisation, with 40% of surveyed institutions indicating they are a significant barrier. These outdated infrastructures frequently struggle to meet the demands of modern payment systems, especially as customer expectations shift toward instantaneous, seamless, and personalised services.

Additionally, siloed infrastructures limit scalability and impose operational inefficiencies due to the challenges that come with managing disparate systems. For their part, SaaS platforms provide a remedy, enabling quick access to new payment rails, seamless integration across lines of business, and the agility needed to scale operations when and where needed.

For instance, 44% of financial institution respondents cited scalability as a key advantage of SaaS platforms, allowing them to quickly expand payment services to new regions and customer segments. By leveraging SaaS, banks can focus on delivering innovative customer-centric services while allowing specialised providers to manage infrastructure complexities.

Driving Collaboration and Transparency

Another significant advantage of adopting SaaS solutions is the promotion of collaboration among financial institutions. In the increasingly fragmented global payments landscape, SaaS platforms can serve as a shared framework for collaboration. They enable non-competitive banks to leverage shared services and APIs for a broader range of payment solutions across diverse regions, accelerating the time to market for new services.

Moreover, SaaS platforms foster transparency by centralising data and providing real-time insights. Financial institutions gain enhanced visibility into transaction flows, customer behaviour, and potential risks, ultimately improving decision-making and mitigating operational risks.

Managing Sanction Screening and Reducing False Positives

In today’s regulatory climate, managing sanctions screening has become a critical function for banks. Traditional methods involving manual updates to in-house systems are becoming untenable as transaction volumes grow. By incorporating sanctions screening into SaaS platforms, banks can utilise real-time and updated sanctions data to automate their screening processes. Advanced algorithms and machine learning can significantly reduce false positives, resolving one of the major challenges in sanction checks while minimising unnecessary service disruptions.

Legacy Systems and Cloud Migration: A Hybrid Future

While the advantages of SaaS are clear, not all financial institutions will fully move to a cloud-only model in the immediate future. Many will adopt a hybrid solution, balancing legacy systems with cloud-based platforms. This flexible approach allows institutions to retain the stability of existing systems while gradually migrating to cloud solutions to support the latest payment innovations.

The hybrid model allows organisations to maintain reliability while adopting newer technologies to improve functionality and address current challenges.

The Future of SaaS in Banking

Looking ahead, the trend of SaaS adoption within the banking sector has staying power. According to Accenture, 61% of financial institutions intend to transition to the cloud in the next five years, with many already investing in the necessary technologies for modernisation.

The market for SaaS is predicted to expand from $54 billion in 2022 to over $130 billion by 2027, according to the SaaS Academy global trends report.

As the pressure to innovate and meet complex regulatory demands increases, SaaS-based core banking platforms will be positioned as essential components of future payment infrastructures. By enhancing scalability, operational efficiency, compliance, and resilience, SaaS solutions offer the foundation for navigating the evolving financial landscape.

Key Benefits of SaaS for Digital Payments Modernisation

Financial institutions can leverage SaaS technology for improved operational resilience and payment system modernisation through several strategic advantages:

• Access Centralised Visibility: Bottomline’s Universal Aggregator solution provides oversight of the financial information flow, bolstering security and compliance while ensuring efficiency in global financial messaging.

• Receive Consolidated Access to Services: SaaS solutions facilitate comprehensive financial messaging by aggregating payments and cash management into a single, secure platform for streamlined processing.

• Develop New Opportunities through Connectivity: Institutions can enhance their capacities for near-real-time payments and open banking, benefiting from broad access to global markets and services via a multi-clearing network through an intelligent platform

• Leverage Enhanced Insights: Improved visibility, fraud prevention, and compliance tools allow institutions to protect customers and streamline acquisition efforts, all while fostering trust and operational efficiency.

• Ensure Compliance and Security: Financial organisations can rest easy knowing that they are meeting regulatory and legal requirements globally through integrated solutions that address financial crime management comprehensively.

• Scalability for Growth: Bottomline’s solutions enable clients to grow efficiently rather than compounding inefficiencies at a larger scale, thereby facilitating effective tracking, control, and insights into transactions.

The evolution of payments infrastructure is forcing banks and FIs to rethink their strategies for operational resilience and efficiency. SaaS and cloud computing offer a pathway not only to achieving compliance but also to enhancing scalability and innovation.

As FIs navigate a complex and evolving landscape, capabilities offered by SaaS and strong bank connectivity solutions are critical for ensuring operational resilience and efficiency. By addressing legacy pain points and facilitating seamless integration, these technologies empower banks to respond swiftly to disruptions, meet regulatory requirements, and maintain a consistent customer experience.

The adoption of cloud-based platforms will not just enhance operational resilience; it will redefine the very nature of banking. As institutions fully embrace SaaS and strong connectivity, they position themselves not only to survive but to thrive in today’s fast-paced payments environment.

Ultimately, success in the digital age hinges on financial institutions’ ability to leverage technology strategically, creating a robust, agile, and customer-centric operational framework. By investing in transformative solutions, banks can thrive in an increasingly competitive environment and ensure success in the future of banking and payments.

Click here to read the report in full.

Unlocking Operational Efficiency

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Cashless trend grows as one in seven UK high street shops ditch cash

It wasn’t that long ago that I would stop to photograph a shop or café displaying a “cash only” sign. Digital payment options are now so widespread that those moments have become rare.

New research from LINK, the operator of the UK’s ATM network, highlights just how much payment habits are shifting. Its latest findings show that a growing number of high street businesses are going cashless, with 14% of shops stopping the acceptance of notes and coins over the past 12 months.

I’m a strong advocate of payment choice, and this research raises an important question: is the UK at risk of creating a two-tier high street if the move away from cash continues?

One in seven UK high street shops went cashless in last year

A growing number of UK high street businesses are no longer accepting cash, with new research showing that 14% of shops stopped taking notes and coins over the past 12 months.

Despite the increasing use of cards and mobile payments, cash still accounts for 46% of face-to-face transactions, according to a survey of 1,116 firms conducted by the ATM network LINK. Cash use remains particularly common in sectors such as independent retail, cafés and pubs, convenience stores and launderettes.

Overall, 77% of small and medium-sized retailers still accept cash, but the survey indicates that 14% have switched to cashless payments in the past year alone.

A recent inquiry by the Treasury Select Committee warned that without intervention the UK could end up with a “two-tier high street”, where some customers are effectively excluded from shops, cafés and local services because they cannot pay digitally.

Businesses cited several reasons for moving to cashless payments. The most common was fraud prevention (22%), followed by security concerns (21%) and declining customer demand for cash (20%). Around 19% said digital payments simplify bookkeeping and accounting. Other factors included limited cash deposit facilities (13%) and the closure of local bank branches (11%).

More than four in five high street SMEs (82%) said they would benefit from improved access to deposit facilities, such as those offered by Post Office branches or new banking hubs. Nearly half of businesses want to preserve the option to accept cash in the future, while over half believe the fall in cash usage is damaging the high street. A majority (53%) also support making cash acceptance mandatory.

Internationally, governments are beginning to act. The government of Australia introduced rules earlier this year requiring most fuel and grocery retailers to accept in-person cash payments of 500 Australian dollars or less between 7am and 9pm.

Joanna Wallace, chair of the Link Consumer Council, said it is increasingly common to see “card only” signs at tills in shops and cafés—where two decades ago “cash only” notices were more typical.

“The ways people want to pay are changing, and so are the options businesses can offer,” she said. “Our research highlights the complex factors behind payment choices for business owners. But it also underlines that cash still plays an important role on the high street.”

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The Lion Is in the Room: Stablecoins Have Arrived

A guest blog by John Bertrand

You can ignore an elephant in the room for a remarkably long time. It is large, yes — but often immobile.

A lion is different. A lion demands attention.

It reshapes the behaviour of everyone around it. It cannot be wished away, postponed, or politely avoided.

John Bertrand

The stablecoin lion is already in the room.

The question is not whether it should be there. The question is whether we are prepared to train it.

Stablecoins — and related instruments such as tokenised deposits — offer compelling advantages: lower transaction costs, greater transparency, improved accountability, and genuine 24/7 accessibility. These are not marginal improvements. They represent structural change in how value moves.

For the UK, this matters enormously.

The City of London remains the world’s largest foreign exchange centre. It holds that position partly because of geography: London bridges Asia and the United States. As Asia closes, London opens. As London closes, the US begins. This unique time-zone advantage has underpinned decades of global trading dominance.

But technology has changed the rhythm. Markets no longer need to sleep. Digital assets can trade 24/7. Tokens can be transferred and stored in digital wallets anywhere in the world at any time. The competitive edge now lies not only in geography, but in infrastructure.

The Bank of England has already taken meaningful steps. Following its consultation — to which the WCIT (Worshipful Company of Information Technologists) responded broadly in agreement, offering six practical recommendations — the Bank announced plans to extend CHAPS and RTGS operating hours, targeting 2027. This is a significant move. Stablecoins require round-the-clock access and finality of settlement; the UK is aligning its core systems accordingly.

In addition, four organisations have been admitted to the Bank’s regulatory sandbox to trial stablecoin models — an encouraging sign that experimentation is being paired with oversight.

Naturally, concerns remain.

A central issue is interoperability. Much of the financial system still relies on centralised, hierarchical core systems, often written in legacy languages such as COBOL and even Assembler. These systems — some representing 50% of banks’ core infrastructure — are deeply embedded and mission-critical. They are the bedrock of financial services.

Yet the divide between legacy infrastructure and permissionless distributed ledgers is narrowing. APIs, advances in distributed ledger technology, smart contracts, and improved processing speeds are making integration far more achievable than even a few years ago.

Governance is evolving too. Stablecoin ecosystems increasingly rely on near real-time data flows, transparent ledgers, and clearly defined custodial arrangements. Combined with established KYC and AML frameworks — and enhanced by continuous transaction monitoring — these structures can mitigate financial crime risks more effectively than many legacy systems. Instant settlement does not mean reduced compliance; in fact, it can mean greater traceability.

Globally, adoption is accelerating. The jurisdiction that ultimately “owns” digital finance will not be the one that moves fastest without guardrails, but the one that demonstrates interoperability, legal clarity, regulatory confidence, and international trust.

Here, the UK has formidable advantages.

Five centuries of commercial continuity have given the City of London globally respected standards in law, governance, regulation, liquidity and market fairness. Few jurisdictions can match that institutional inheritance. The UK is not merely participating in digital finance; it is well positioned to shape its rules.

But success depends on perception as much as plumbing.

Stablecoins must look and feel like money. They must be simple to use and intuitively understood. Consumers do not want a lecture on distributed ledger architecture; they want to pay for dinner.

Apple Pay succeeded not because people mastered its technology, but because it made payment easier than pulling out a card. Ask in a pub quiz who has a digital wallet and many will say “not me” — until someone points out it’s already on their phone.

The same principle applies to stablecoins. Education is essential — not technical evangelism, but practical clarity. What are stablecoins? Who issues them? Who safeguards them? How are they governed? How are disputes resolved? How is value protected?

Confidence comes from understanding.

The UK’s geographic position, legal depth, and institutional credibility provide a genuine competitive advantage in digital finance governance — but only if matched with deliberate action. The Bank of England’s 2026 consultation milestones must be met. Infrastructure must be modernised. Standards must be set. And education must accompany innovation.

Because this is no longer an abstract debate.

You can ignore an elephant in the room for a remarkably long time. It is large, yes — but often immobile.

A lion is different.

A lion demands attention. It reshapes the behaviour of everyone around it. It cannot be wished away, postponed, or politely avoided.

Stablecoins are not a theoretical presence. They are active, mobile, and global.

The lion is already in the room. The real question is whether the UK intends to lead the training — or watch from the doorway while others do.

John Bertrand

Thank you to John Bertrand for sharing this guest blog

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Swedish Central Bank urges households to keep a week’s worth of cash on hand

The Sveriges Riksbank (Swedish Central Bank) is urging households to keep around a week’s worth of cash on hand in case digital payment systems go down.

According to the Swedish central bank, the country’s heavy reliance on digital payments — combined with today’s uncertain global climate — could leave the payment system vulnerable during a disruption.

Officials say the public plays a key role in national preparedness. Having multiple ways to pay can make a big difference during outages, crises, or even conflict.

The Riksbank recommends households keep about 1,000 Swedish kronor (roughly £80) in cash per adult at home. The amount is intended to cover essential purchases for about a week, though families may need more or less depending on household size. They also suggest keeping different denominations of cash.

The bank notes that if card networks fail, Sweden’s popular mobile payment service Swish could still work in some scenarios — so consumers are encouraged to sign up.

For people who usually rely on phone payments like Apple Pay or Google Pay, the advice is simple: keep your physical cards handy in case your phone battery dies or the device stops working.

Cash is still seen as the most reliable fallback in emergencies. The Riksbank has even backed proposals that would protect the continued use of cash through legislation.

Consumers are also advised to carry cards on both major networks — Visa and Mastercard — in case one system experiences disruption.

The central bank is also exploring ways to enable offline card payments, which would allow transactions to go through even if internet connections fail. At the moment, Sweden has limited capability in this area, and contactless or mobile wallet payments do not work at all without connectivity.

If you kept a week’s worth of cash at home, how much would you actually need?

The Sveriges Riksbank suggests households keep around 1,000 Swedish kronor (about £80) per adult in cash to cover essential spending if digital payments were disrupted.

But would that realistically cover a week of essential goods and services for you?

Will you be keeping a week’s cash at home in case digital payments fail?

According to the Swedish central bank, the country’s heavy reliance on digital payments — combined with today’s uncertain global climate — could leave the payment system vulnerable during a disruption.

Will you be keeping a week’s cash at home in case digital payments fail?

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Payments Forward Plan

The Payments Vision Delivery Committee (PVDC) has published the much anticipated Payments Forward Plan, setting out a coordinated regulatory roadmap for the payments sector over the next three years. The Plan builds on the strategic direction established by the government’s National Payments Vision (NPV).

Established in November 2024, the PVDC was tasked with advancing priority initiatives in support of the NPV. In line with its second formal deliverable, it has now produced a sequenced programme of payments-related measures intended to support sector planning and create space for innovation. The Plan also explains how each initiative is designed to contribute to the NPV’s stated ambition of a trusted, world-leading payments ecosystem, underpinned by next-generation technology and offering meaningful choice to consumers and businesses.

When the Payments Forward Plan was first announced, some cautioned me against expecting too much too quickly. In retrospect, that perspective may have been well founded - my hope was for a more immediately transformative package. While the plan may improve transparency and sequencing, it suggests a continued period of consultation and policy development before material changes are felt in how consumers and businesses pay for the goods and services they consume.

The Plan lists thirty individual initiatives. On initial review, the compilation bears a strong resemblance to the Regulatory Initiatives Grid already maintained by the authorities, albeit presented through a payments-specific lens.

Whether the Plan ultimately accelerates delivery or primarily codifies work already underway will become clearer over time.

The Plan

Building on the government’s National Payments Vision, the Payments Forward Plan sets out a coordinated regulatory roadmap for the payments sector over the next three years. It provides a transparent overview of payments-related initiatives led by HM Treasury and the authorities, and explains how these actions advance the Vision’s ambition for a trusted, world-leading ecosystem underpinned by next-generation technology and offering genuine choice for consumers and businesses.

The Plan was developed collaboratively by HM Treasury, the Bank of England, the Financial Conduct Authority and the Payment Systems Regulator, with engagement from industry and user representatives through the Vision Engagement Group. In shaping the programme, careful consideration was given to sector capacity and sequencing.

By consolidating the regulatory pipeline and clarifying intended outcomes, the Plan is designed to support effective planning and enable private sector innovation. It complements steps taken in response to the 2023 Future of Payments Review, including the planned consolidation of the PSR within the FCA, and contributes to a more predictable and proportionate regulatory framework.

The programme encompasses retail and wholesale payments, as well as aspects of digital assets. It includes modernising regulation, promoting competition, safeguarding security, and enabling innovation in areas such as tokenisation and agentic AI. It also involves continued engagement with industry to ensure future regulation is fit for purpose and supports firms bringing new products to market. Beyond payments, the FCA will consider interoperability between Open Banking and other smart data schemes, consistent with the government’s intention for Open Finance.

While the Plan brings together ongoing and forthcoming initiatives across public authorities—alongside relevant government and certain industry-led workstreams—it is not exhaustive and timelines remain subject to change. Future initiatives will continue to be assessed against the National Payments Vision and sector capacity, with an enhanced payments focus to be incorporated into the Regulatory Initiatives Grid from 2027.

Thirty initiatives

Here are the thirty initiatives that feature in the Payments Forward Plan along with the primary objective for each initiative.

Top 8 (in my opinion):

• Retail payments infrastructure design and delivery programme (including with Design Authority and Delivery Company). Objective: To design and deliver the next-generation retail payments infrastructure in line with the National Payments Vision and the Payments Vision Delivery Committee’s strategy.

• Short-term enhancements to existing retail payments infrastructure. Objective: To proportionately implement short-term enhancements to the current Faster Payment System and the Bacs Payment System to improve resilience and better support innovation, including in account-to-account payments.

• RTGS and CHAPS settlement hours. Objective: To improve efficiencies for domestic and cross-border payments, reduce settlement risk and support innovation.

• Open Banking. Objective: To establish Open Banking on a commercially sustainable basis, which will allow the CMA order to be revoked and help advance the government’s ambition of making account-to- account payments ubiquitous. This will support delivery of better outcomes for consumers and businesses by enabling secure, simple options for payments e.g. peer- to-peer transfers, flexible bill payments, and point-of-sale payments (including ecommerce).

• Contactless payments. Objective: To give greater flexibility to banks and other payment service providers to determine their approach to contactless payments. This additional flexibility could foster innovation and thereby support growth, while still requiring payment service providers to maintain low levels of risk.

• Access to cash. Objective: To assess whether the Access to Cash regime has maintained reasonable access to cash in the UK. This will help ensure the rules are working effectively to support financial inclusion.

• Wholesale cash. Objective: The Financial Services and Markets Act 2023 established a new statutory oversight regime for wholesale cash distribution by inserting Part 5A into the Banking Act 2009. Under this framework, the Bank of England’s overarching objective is to manage risks to the effectiveness, resilience and sustainability of the wholesale cash distribution industry.

• Enhancing cross-border payments. Objective: To support efforts to make cross-border payments faster, cheaper, more transparent and more accessible, including the implementation of practices that enhance safety and security and improve the detection of financial crime.

And the rest:

• Consolidating the PSR into the FCA. Objective: To deliver a more streamlined regulatory environment, simplifying the regulatory landscape for firms and stakeholders.

• Modernising payments services regulation (review of assimilated payments law including Payment Services Regulations and E Money (review of assimilated payments law including Payment Services Regulations and E Money Regulations). Objective: To deliver a more agile and responsive regulatory environment that promotes innovation in the UK payments sector

• Systemic Payment Systems Fee Cap. Objective: To ensure that the Bank of England is able to charge appropriate supervisory fees for financial market infrastructure in a fair and transparent manner, in order to safeguard financial stability by ensuring that these key systems remain resilient against disruptions and to fund new initiatives that support innovation.

• Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) Reform. Objective: To return the FOS to its original role as a simple, impartial dispute resolution service, providing greater certainty and predictability for consumers and firms who use the FOS.

• APP fraud. Objective: To highlight any areas where the reimbursement policy can be refined to further improve incentives on firms to prevent fraud and protect victims.

• Wholesale experiments programme. Objective: To test if planned enhancements to RT2 can support new wholesale payment needs and innovative use cases, or if further innovation (such as a wholesale Central Bank Digital Currency) may be required.

• Digital Pound. Objective: The work aims to explore the feasibility and benefits of introducing a retail Central Bank Digital Currency in the UK (the digital pound) consistent with the National Payments Vision commitment to continue the digital pound design phase.

• Stablecoin. Objective: To harness the opportunities of stablecoins in the UK, encouraging responsible growth and innovation.

• Digital wallets. Objective: To explore the need for interventions to protect competition in digital wallet provision

• RTGS Synchronisation Lab. Objective: To provide a non-live environment for prospective synchronisation operators to demonstrate their use cases.

• Digital Securities Sandbox (DSS) tokenised payments capabilites. Objective: To support innovation in new technologies, including distributed ledger technology.

• Card fees market reviews: scheme and processing fees and cross- border interchange: On scheme and processing fees, the PSR is consulting on remedies which aim to increase transparency of fees for acquirers, with knock- on benefits for merchants, as well as to improve the information available to the PSR on the schemes’ pricing and profitability in the UK. On cross-border interchange fees, the PSR is undertaking analysis to assess the appropriate level for cross-border interchange fees for outbound, UK-EEA, card-not-present transactions.

• Fraud Strategy. Objective: To disrupt criminals’ ability to commit fraud, safeguarding the public and businesses, supporting growth and delivering justice.

• Data Strategy. Objective: To provide data sharing system leadership and governance, simplify the data sharing system and encourage interoperability, and increase capability to share information, including to better detect economic crime through payment systems.

• Anti-Money Laundering. Objective: To deliver a more risk-based, proportionate regime that is robust against financial crime whilst remaining workable for industry, and to strengthen the UK’s response to money laundering and asset recovery by addressing the 2025 National Risk Assessment, closing gaps identified by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), and futureproofing the system against evolving threats.

• Digital ID. Objective: To unlock government services that work better, and help to save people time, hassle and money. To reduce fraud, enable new possibilities for integrated services, and make interacting with government easier.

• Safeguarding. Objective: To explore opportunities for growth and innovation by levelling the playing field between commercial banks and NBPSPs, subject to maintaining the resilience of RTGS and the wider payments ecosystem.

• Payment and Electronic Money Special Administration Regime (PESAR). Objective: HMT published in December 2025 the Independent Review of the Payment and Electronic Money Insolvency Regulations 2021. This considered how far the regime is achieving its intended objectives alongside recommendations to improve its ability to meet these. HMT is currently considering the Review’s findings and recommendations carefully to set out its Response.

• Consumer Duty. Objective: To raise awareness of the FCA’s expectations of firms in relation to consumers in vulnerable circumstances. This should support financial inclusion and deliver better outcomes for consumers.

• Payments ‘Market Focus’ Report. Objective: To raise awareness of FCA priorities for firms in the non-bank payments sector. This should clarify FCA expectations of firms and raise standards in the sector.

• Consumer Credit Act reform: To deliver a more agile and proportionate regulatory regime for consumer credit that can enable innovation and drive economic growth, while offering robust protection for consumers.

• Transatlantic Taskforce for Markets of the Future. Objective: To further innovation in digital assets and capital markets, and advance the government’s ambition for economic growth.

Payments Forward Plan

Read the whole plan here:

Fuel Payments:Unpacked - your monthly support costs the same as a flat white

Payments:Unpacked is now fully open. From January 2026, all content will be available to every reader.

To support our independent perspective on the payments ecosystem we navigate, we invite readers to contribute £4.35 per month — the price of a flat white.

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Bank of England to Launch 1:30am Start for CHAPS

The Bank of England has announced that it will lengthen operating hours for the UK’s high-value payment system, CHAPS, introducing a new early-morning settlement window beginning in September 2027.

Following industry consultation, the central bank confirmed that the CHAPS settlement day will commence at 01:30, replacing the current 06:00 start time.

Participation in the additional window will be voluntary, allowing direct CHAPS members to submit payments during the newly created early-morning period.

According to the Bank, the extension is intended to:

• Enable earlier Sterling settlement

• Enhance liquidity management

• Improve operational resilience

• Better synchronise UK settlement cycles with global financial markets

There are no immediate plans to lengthen the evening contingency window. However, the Bank confirmed that work continues on proposals covering bank holiday settlement and the broader transition toward near-24/7 settlement capability.

A further consultation paper outlining the next phase of reforms is expected in Spring 2026.

For sale: baby shoes, never worn.

Just six words — yet they imply an entire narrative of anticipation and loss. The line is often held up as the ultimate example of flash fiction - also known as sudden fiction - a literary form built on extreme brevity.

In flash fiction, storytelling is compressed to its essence. There is no exposition, no explanation - only carefully chosen words that invite the reader to fill in the gaps.

Channel your inner Ernest Hemingway

The story is frequently attributed to Ernest Hemingway, whose minimalist style makes the association believable. However, there’s no verified evidence that he wrote it, and similar short classified-style pieces predate him. The connection endures more as literary folklore than documented authorship.

Regardless of its origins, the six-word story remains a powerful demonstration of how much meaning can live inside very little language.

So here’s a contemporary challenge in the same spirit:

How would you define “Account-to-Account payments” in six words?

One attempt:

“Bank-to-bank transfers, no intermediaries.”

What’s yours?

Channel your inner Ernest Hemingway and share your six word definition of “Account-to-Account payments” using the button below.

Share your A2A Flash Fiction

From the ashes of the UK’s New Payment Architecture (NPA) emerges the New Retail Payment Infrastructure (NewRPI) — but will it be the phoenix our industry needs? As the journey to a NewRPI commences we’ll be bringing insights, analysis, and conversations on the future of payments infrastructure in the United Kingdom.

Free from corporate or regulatory agendas, who is better placed to lead the discussion on the NewRPI than Mike Chambers — the driving force behind NewBacs, Faster Payments adoption and part of the original NewCHAPS journey.

Tell me more!

Understanding Certainty of Fate in Faster Payments

As part of industry engagement on Certainty of Fate, a critical concept supporting the future of account-to-account (A2A) payments in the UK, Pay.UK and Open Banking Limited have recently delivered a series of joint presentations with several trade associations, including the British Retail Consortium, the Payments Association, UK Finance and Innovate Finance.

Led by Pay.UK’s Elizabeth Darkens andMark Jones together with Daniel Jenkinson from Open Banking Limited, the sessions have explored what Certainty of Fate means, the challenges currently slowing progress, and how the industry is working together to overcome them.

Here is a summary of the key points discussed.

Understanding Certainty of Fate — Key Facts

What it is

Certainty of Fate (CoF) refers to giving both payer and payee a clear, timely, and unambiguous confirmation of whether an account-to-account (A2A) payment has succeeded or failed — even if funds take slightly longer to post to the beneficiary account. Reliable CoF is seen as essential for trust in retail, e-commerce and subscription payment journeys.

Why it matters

Without clear payment outcomes, merchants may delay fulfilment, customers might retry payments unnecessarily, and payment providers face operational issues managing exceptions. Quick and dependable status feedback is crucial at checkout and in real-time interactions.

Key Challenges Identified

Legacy Faster Payments System (FPS) design

FPS was built for traditional bank-to-bank transfers and doesn’t fully reflect modern A2A payment flows involving PISPs (Payment Initiation Service Providers) and merchant platforms.

“Qualified Acceptances” confusion

Some payments are irrevocably accepted but may not immediately post to the beneficiary account (e.g., savings or off-line systems). Inconsistent status messaging means merchants or PISPs can be uncertain about the outcome.

Rule and standard alignment issues

There’s complexity in how FPS messaging rules interact with Open Banking standards and regulatory requirements, which can lead to gaps in payment outcome information flowing back to PISPs.

Partial adoption of Open Banking status codes

Although the Open Banking Standard v4.0 can support full CoF, optional status fields (like “Status Reason”) aren’t always provided, leaving gaps in clarity.

Industry Actions & Next Steps

FPS rule clarification

Pay.UK is finalising changes to the FPS rules to better define qualified acceptances and align messaging with A2A use cases.

Improving Open Banking information flows

Through the draft Commercial Variable Recurring Payment (cVRP) Multilateral Agreement, stronger mandates for full status messaging are expected.

Account eligibility guidance

Encouraging merchants to use accounts that support instant posting of A2A payments will help reduce delays in confirmed outcomes.

Ongoing collaboration

Pay.UK and Open Banking Limited continue to engage with account providers, PISPs and trade bodies to refine these enhancements and improve the A2A experience.

Planned outputs

• Consolidated summary of CoF work to regulators by end of Q1 2026

• Continued cooperation to align rules and standards across the ecosystem

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PSR Slaps £3.7m Fine on Bank of Ireland UK for Missing the CoP Memo

The UK’s Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) has imposed a £3,779,300 fine on Bank of Ireland UK plc for missing the legal deadline to implement Confirmation of Payee (CoP), an important anti-fraud measure.

The regulator required the bank to have systems in place to send and receive CoP requests by 31 October 2023. CoP is a name-checking service designed to let customers confirm that the account name matches the intended recipient before a payment is sent, helping to reduce fraud and accidental transfers.

Bank of Ireland UK introduced its system to send CoP requests about 14 months late, meaning it did not meet the PSR deadline. Because of this delay, more than 1.14 million new payees and transactions worth around £6.9 billion were processed without the benefit of the safeguard.

The PSR says payment firms were given ample notice of the requirement after it was confirmed in October 2022, yet Bank of Ireland UK was the last of the regulated “Group 1” providers to comply.

David Geale, Managing Director at the PSR, emphasised that CoP plays a critical role in protecting customers from fraud and misdirected payments and said the missed deadline exposed customers to unnecessary risk.

Because Bank of Ireland UK agreed to an early settlement during the enforcement process, its penalty was reduced by 30 % from an initial figure of about £5.4 million.

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Walking to work on the 26 April 1993

My walk to work on the 26 April 1993 was like no other – the historic Square Mile had been attacked!

A career in London’s Square Mile

A huge proportion of my payments career has been based in The City – also known as the ‘Square Mile’.

London’s Square Mile

Commonly used as an alternative for the City of London, the term ‘Square Mile’ comes from the amount of land in the heart of the city which is under the jurisdiction of the City of London Corporation.

During my five decades in payments, it is not surprising to have experienced a number of significant payment related events that happened in London’s ‘Square Mile’ – you may have already watched my ‘City Payments Trip’ video:

My time in The City covered Nick Leeson’s role in the downfall of Barings (1995), the Bearer Bond robbery in Nicholas Lane (1990), Big Bang (1986), Black Monday (1987), the introduction of the Euro (1999), Black Wednesday (1992), the end of the Town Clearing (1995), the first year of CHAPS (1984).

Given the activities conducted in The City these events might not be considered to be a surprise when thinking about a career covering five decades.

However, an event that occurred in 1993 was, perhaps, the most unexpected and out of place both in a financial district and my career.

It was these events of 1993 that I recalled as I walked from Liverpool Street station to Fenchurch Street – retracing my walk to work on Monday the 26 April 1993.

A bomb on Bishopsgate

A month after being stolen from Newcastle-under-Lyme a freshly painted dark blue Iveco tipper truck was driven at 9am on Saturday the 24 April, 1993 into the ‘Square Mile’.

The truck’s destination was the road just outside the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation at 99 Bishopsgate (by the junction to Wormwood Street) right in the heart of The City.

Concealed under a layer of tarmac was a one tonne ammonium nitrate–fuel oil bomb which had been smuggled onto the GB mainland by the IRA’s South Armagh Brigade.

With the two people in the lorry escaping in an accomplice’s car, a call using a recognised codeword was made from a phone box in County Armagh, Northern Ireland stating that “(there’s) a massive bomb … clear the area”.

At 10:27am, amidst the area being evacuated, the bomb exploded causing extensive damage to multiple buildings in the Bishopsgate area. Despite The City being a lot quieter on a Saturday a newspaper photographer was killed and 44 people were injured.

The NatWest Tower (now Tower 42) was badly damaged with many windows on the east side of the tower were blown out and in total it is estimated that 1,500,000 sq ft (140,000 m²) of office space being affected and over 500 tonnes of glass broken.

London’s Square Mile was devastated:

Black gaps punched its fifty-two floors like a mouth full of bad teeth.

Daily Mail

For comparison this is what 99 Bishopsgate looks like today.

The building behind the red bus is the building in the right of the 1993 picture and Wormwood Street (the aerial 1993 picture centres on) looks like the picture on the left today.

Built in 1411 and destroyed in 1993

Across the road, the blast also destroyed St Ethelburga’s church. This church was one of the few surviving medieval City churches in London, although the foundation date of the church is unknown it was first recorded in 1250 as the church of St Adelburga the Virgin.

The church was rebuilt around 1411 and was severely damaged by the Bishopsgate bomb. Following the bomb it was rebuilt and restoration and subsequently re-opened as a Centre for Reconciliation and Peace.

Walking to work on the 26 April 1993

The devastation stretched up Bishopsgate towards Gracechurch Street and it was along the middle of this street I walked on Monday the 26^th April 1993 to access my bank and fulfil my CHAPS payment duties.

You could see the smoke coming up from the vicinity of Bishopsgate and the first thing that struck you was the taller buildings. The damage to, what was then, Natwest Tower, and places like that. It was total devastation.

PC Richard Fullbrook, City of London Police

A pathway was cleared along the middle of the street to allow City bankers to get to their offices. My recollection is a quiet, eerie street scene with blown out windows, window blinds flapping in the wind and glass, masonry and other debris littered across the floor.

It was through this devastation that I picked my path in the middle of The City’s main thoroughfare fare amongst the debris sent crashing to the floor by a terrorist bomb.

In 2018 the BBC published a video of never seen before images of the destruction at Bishopsgate providing more insight into the extent of the damage that occurred:

The Bishopsgate bomb wasn’t my first experience of The City being attacked as I also had to walk from Liverpool Street Station to Fenchurch Street in the days after the Baltic Exchange bombing a year earlier.

Ring of steel

After this second bombing the City of London planned a new security cordon for The City and in July 1993 introduced an armed police checkpoint based ‘ring of steel’ around the Square Mile.

Much has happened since this event in 1993 and my hope is that The City (nor any part of the UK) experiences events such as these again.

Consumer Council ensures that the consumer is put at the heart of LINK.

Established in 2006 to provide advice on consumer issues relating to the ATM network, the Council brings together independent experts and LINK Members.

Since 2006 it has helped develop our financial inclusion work. It has made the case for £5 notes at ATMs, championed cashback without a purchase and played a key role in inviting requests from communities.

The Council publishes an annual report which provide further details of the Council's objectives, members, its activities over the year and forward-looking priorities. This report publishes the Council’s independent assessment of the LINK Scheme's performance against its consumer interest objectives.

Here’s the highlights from the report - also you can read the newly published 2025 report here:

Read the full report

Financial Inclusion in Numbers

LINK track a huge number of stats as part of their Financial Inclusion Programme - all adding up to one conclusion: despite a rapid shift away from cash usage, LINK’s Programme is delivering for consumers.

Digital by default, but cash remains key

LINK regularly commissions research to help shape policy and support discussions at the LINK Consumer Council. This year’s report, “Tapping into Trouble?”, highlighted just how quickly payment habits are changing.

While “cash is king” may still ring true for some, convenience now dominates. Adrian Roberts told the Council that digital payments have become the default, with fewer than half of people typically leaving home with a wallet. Although this works well for many, reliance on digital systems carries risks — from outages to dead phone batteries.

The findings are striking: 61% of people have experienced a payment failure, fewer than half of UK adults consider a physical wallet essential (just 38% of 18–24 year olds), and people carry a median average of only £20 when they go out, with just £10 kept at home.

The report offered practical advice for consumers and highlighted work by the Bank of England to strengthen system resilience. Council discussions stressed that the National Payments Vision must prioritise digital inclusion, ensuring the system works for everyone — not just the digitally confident — while also protecting access to cash as a vital option.

Financial Inclusion Programme

LINK’s Financial Inclusion Programme, established in 2006, was designed to safeguard access to cash across the UK and continues to play a vital role despite the rapid shift towards digital payments.

In 2025, LINK is directing more than £1.4 million each month to support ATMs within the programme, ensuring free access to cash in rural and deprived communities.

Since 2018, LINK has protected the ATM network and, although the PSR withdrew Specific Direction 12 in 2024 when the FCA took on broader responsibility for cash access, LINK has maintained its commitment.

The last ATM within 1km remains protected, the overall protected footprint continues to grow, and subsidies remain in place to support the final machine in town. As CEO John Howells noted, while cash withdrawals are declining, protecting the network ensures consumers can still access their money nationwide.

The programme continues to prioritise deprived areas, with 2,805 communities supported through targeted free cash access. Currently, 428 areas have fewer than 95% of residents within 1km of a free cash access point — a figure that has remained stable for two years, even as the overall number of free ATMs has fallen by nearly 10%.

LINK’s ongoing commitment has been central to meeting the Government’s target that at least 95% of people live within a reasonable distance of free cash access. As of December 2025, 96% of the population meets this standard.

Cash Acceptance

Protecting access to cash has required close collaboration between industry, regulators and Government, with the Financial Inclusion Programme playing a central role.

This collective effort has helped ensure that both consumers and businesses can continue to withdraw and deposit cash on the high street. However, a House of Commons Treasury Select Committee report published in April 2025 highlighted concerns about declining cash acceptance. The Committee noted that a lack of consistent evidence makes it difficult — even for the Treasury — to assess the true state of cash acceptance across the UK.

In response, the LINK Consumer Council discussed the issue and recommended that LINK undertake further research to address the evidence gaps. LINK subsequently commissioned a poll of high street retailers, alongside in-depth interviews, to better understand their attitudes and practices around cash acceptance. Consumer Council members contributed their expertise to shape the project, and the resulting report is intended to strengthen the evidence base for policymakers considering the future of cash on the high street.

Individuality of our High Streets

LINK also released significant research highlighting the important role that place plays in shaping spending habits. Drawing on detailed analysis of ATM withdrawals and demographic data, a nationally representative survey, and on-the-ground research across six high streets, the study applied insights from the Financial Inclusion Programme at a local level. It found that while ATM networks have changed over time and withdrawal volumes have declined in every town examined, cash remains an important part of high street activity. In fact, 38% of shoppers said they planned to manage their cash during their visit, whether through an ATM, Post Office or bank.

The research also revealed that each town has its own distinct relationship with cash and digital payments. Adoption of digital payment methods varied more by location than by age or affluence, underlining the importance of local context. These findings reinforce a central principle of LINK’s financial inclusion work: every community is different and should be treated individually wherever possible.

Engaging with communities

LINK uses a range of live data sets to monitor access to cash on every high street across the UK. Any changes to local services are reviewed and assessed through its regulated process to ensure communities remain appropriately served. However, LINK recognises that data alone cannot replace on-the-ground insight, and it actively encourages people to raise concerns about local cash services directly.

In 2025, LINK has reviewed around 50 communities each month following contact from residents. In many instances, existing services were found to meet local needs, but in 29 communities LINK recommended improvements as a result of those enquiries. Feedback from communities remains a vital part of LINK’s work to safeguard access to cash nationwide.

LINK: Consumer Council Annual Report 2025

Read the full report here:

Read the full report

Fuel Payments:Unpacked - your monthly support costs the same as a flat white

To support our independent perspective on the payments ecosystem we navigate, we invite readers to contribute £4.35 per month — the price of a flat white.

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Faster prizes. Fewer cheques. Less friction.

Allwyn, operator of The National Lottery, has introduced direct-to-bank payments for in-store prizes between £500.01 and £50,000 — replacing the slow, paper-based cheque process.

In partnership with Bottomline, Allwyn has launched a streamlined online claims journey that enables winners to receive funds directly into their bank accounts within 24 hours of approval.

The move follows the Post Office’s withdrawal from paying mid-tier prizes. Since taking over in 2024, Allwyn has already paid more than 45,000 such prizes — over £50 million — while progressively modernising the claims process.

The new default is bank transfer - the direction of travel is clear: faster settlement, automated account name checks, reduced manual handling, and significantly lower postage and administration costs.

Eliminating thousands of cheques doesn’t just accelerate payments to winners — it cuts operational overhead. That efficiency means more money flowing to National Lottery-funded Good Causes instead of into envelopes and stamps.

For players, the experience is simple: submit a claim online, upload a ticket image, verify bank details via secure link, and get paid — quickly.

Less paper. Less delay. More impact.

Fuel Payments:Unpacked - your monthly support costs the same as a flat white

Payments:Unpacked is now fully open. From January 2026, all content will be available to every reader.

To support our independent perspective on the payments ecosystem we navigate, we invite readers to contribute £4.35 per month — the price of a flat white.

Fuel Payments:Unpacked - £4.35 a month