Welcome to the many new Payments:Unpacked subscribers who have joined this week with a special welcome to those that have chosen to support the newsletter with a ‘paid for’ subscription (20% off an annual subscription).
Mike's career at the heart of the UK's payments infrastructure and his wide perspective on the evolution of the space are invaluable to those of us developing strategies in the field.
Dave Birch, In the future, everyone will be famous for 15Mb
Plum rolls out 'Naughty Rule' tab for extravagant spenders
Source: Finextra.
Smart money app Plum has rolled out a 'Naughty Rule' that sets aside extra money for savings if users splash out on guilty pleasures.
Customers using the Naughty Rule tab can elect to set aside between £1 and £10 from their linked cards to assuage their guilt on extravagant or unneccesary spending.
Plum has rolled out the feature for 50 of the most popular retailers regualarly used by customers. Once the Naughty Rule has been fully enabled, Plum will make one extra saving per day when the customer spends at the retailer, either online or in store.
McDonald’s is the second most popular retailer for our customers, for example, with an average of 17 transactions per year per customer. If a customer sets their ‘Naughty Rule’ to £10, that could be an extra £170 stashed away. Or, the ‘Naughty Rule’ could even act as a deterrent to spend in the first place. If saving more is your new year’s resolution, Plum’s smart rules will help you keep it!
Lia Papageorgiou, product manager at Plum
Payments made personal, easy and more secure
SurePay's Confirmation of Payee (CoP) service is an innovative, real-time name checking solution that gives UK payers greater assurance that their payments are going to the intended recipient.
By confirming the payee’s name matches with the name on the intended recipient’s bank account, CoP helps avoid mis-directed payments and reduce push payment fraud. The service is already live in the UK and is fully compliant with Pay.UK’s CoP rules and standards, successfully handling over 300,000 name checks every day for their UK partner clients.
More:
What's more important in a payment system - volume or value?
A central banker might argue value but as a former custodian of the UK's systemically important retail payment schemes I'd argue volume any day!
In this video we explore the digital growth and analogue decline of the UK's Bacs, Faster Payments and cheque payment systems.
More: Watch the full video here: What's more important in a payment system - volume or value?
Seven things you should know about LINK
The LINK Consumer Council has published its latest Annual Report - available here - the report sets out the work of the Consumer Council in developing LINK’s financial inclusion programme.
The Consumer Council has overseen LINK’s financial inclusion programme, delved into regional features of cash access, and supported the continued rollout of cash at the till, which enables consumers to access their cash at local shops who adopt the service.
Current Account Switching Service switches
The Current Account Switch Service operated by Pay.UK has switched its advertising approach - here’s the latest advert.
Having been responsbile for the launch of the CASS service and its custodian for a number of years I always take great pride in seeing CASS being actively promoted.
Financial Services and Markets Bill is now with the House of Lords
The Financial Services and Markets Bill, the platform upon which much of the Government’s vision for financial services will be delivered, has arrived in the House of Lords.
A substantial, second reading debate took place this week. Forty-eight of my most knowledgeable and distinguished Lords colleagues signed up to speak, raising many of the same, important, issues, covered here when I wrote about the Commons 2nd reading back in September last year.
It was a substantial debate for a substantial Bill. Undoubtedly the biggest reform of financial regulation in a generation. Consisting of 20 separate measures and more than 335 pages it covers a vast array of objectives and the means to get there.
Lord Holmes of Richmond MBE / CityAM
Millions of customers benefit as Open Banking reaches milestone
The UK Government have reported that the six largest banking providers in the UK have implemented fully the standards required by the CMA to deliver Open Banking, helping provide innovative services to millions of account holders, securely. The substantive completion of the Roadmap signals the start of a new phase for Open Banking.
The CMA Retail Banking Market Investigation Roadmap Completion Decision was published on the 12 January - at just seven pages its worth a speed read but here are a couple of interesting paragraphs from the report:
The CMA expects the three banking providers that have not completed the implementation of the remaining Roadmap items, namely Allied Irish Bank, Bank of Ireland and Danske Bank, to do so as soon as feasible and will take enforcement action if necessary and appropriate to ensure this happens in a timely way.
And:
The Open Banking Implementation Entity’s focus will now shift more fully towards preparing for the transition of Open Banking from the current model, in which the Open Banking Implementation Entity is overseen by the CMA, to an interim state, during which it is expected that a future entity will be overseen by the Joint Regulatory Oversight Committee (in respect of non-order activity) and by the CMA (in respect of the Order activity) prior to the establishment of a long-term regulatory framework for Open Banking. The interim state begins with the CMA determining the current Roadmap to be substantially complete, through issuing this document.
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In brief
Who said that analogue (cash) “jam jar” or “envelope” budgeting methods couldn’t work in a digital (cashless / less-cash) world? - "I use 19 Monzo Pots to manage every aspect of my money."
Five associations have come together to form a new alliance – the UK Forum for Digital Currencies (UK FDC) – which will celebrate innovation and collaboration across the payments industry. Members include the City of London Corporation, Digital Pound Foundation, The Payments Association, TheCityUK and UK Finance. The aim of the alliance is to develop better policies, practice and regulation around digital currencies.
China’s digital yuan app has released a function which allows payments to be made from mobile phones while offline and without any battery left on the device.
Enhance your payments knowledge in 2023
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