Payments industry and regulatory round up

Issue 280 | 2 March 2022

Welcome to issue 280 of Payments:Unpacked, this premium subscriber edition provides a round-up of payment related developments at Pay.UK, the Payment Systems Regulator, the Bank of England, HM Treasury, the FCA and the Open Banking Implementation Entity.

Period covered: 16 February to 2 March 2022.

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Pay.UK

Pay.UK publishes new strategy document

Pay.UK have published our strategy document ‘Our foundation for the future 2021-2026’. It details their purpose, vision and strategic goals, which they believe will help continue to keep the UK at the forefront of the global payments industry.

The new strategy is designed to provide Pay.UK with the framework they need to deliver what end users (e.g. individuals and businesses), current and future customers (e.g. payment service providers such as banks and building societies), and regulators want: a fast, efficient and well-managed payments platform today, and a next-generation payments platform for the future – the New Payment Architecture (NPA).

More:

• Pay.UK’s foundation for the future 2021-2026.

New data model to help prevent APP fraud

Pay.UK has developed a new tool for use in the fight against Authorised Push Payment (APP) fraud. The new ‘logical data model’ will serve as a foundation for categorising relevant customer data that enables both the banks involved in processing a payment (the sending bank and receiving bank) to more easily identify a fraudulent transaction.

The model will serve as the basis for a long-term approach to how the industry standardises customer data. This will allow payment service providers to improve how they exchange data, ultimately enabling more accurate, and faster detection of suspect payments.

Pay.UK have developed this approach in collaboration with UK Finance’s Enhanced Fraud Data Working Group - specifically to help its members’ needs in the fight against fraud. In the first half of 2021, fraud losses totalled £753.9 million (£398.6m through unauthorised fraud and £355.3m through APP fraud).

More:

• The first iteration of this extensible data model is now available via Pay.UK’s external portal: Standards Source.

Request to Pay and the Interactive Advance Notice

Pay.UK’s Simon Brooks has been writing about Request to Pay and Interactive Advance Notices:

Our research has told us that businesses love Request to Pay and want their customers to be able to use it. Transparency, flexibility and control over payments is even more relevant as can be seen with the energy sector price increases starting to have an impact. The control and flexibility that Pay.UK’s Request to Pay proposition can offer consumers could really help in the challenging times ahead. One of our drivers this year is therefore to see Request to Pay helping consumers to manage their bills.

More:

• Request to Pay and the Interactive Advance Notice.

In brief

• Faster Payments volumes rise again.

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Payment Systems Regulator

The situation in Ukraine

The PSR have stated that they are working closely with the Treasury, financial authorities and other government agencies in the UK to help make sure the financial sector continues to work well and no harm comes to consumers and financial markets.

Given the situation, the PSR are encouraging firms to consider how they can manage any associated risks. In particular:

• the ability to withstand attack from a sophisticated state actor;

• whether staffing levels are available to deal with an elevated cyber risk from state sponsored or other actors;

• the implications on third party suppliers if there are sanctions; and

• the resilience of third party suppliers.

More:

• The situation in Ukraine.

• Kein SWIFT for Russland?

PSR finalises plans for the wider implementation of fraud prevention tool, Confirmation of Payee

The Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) has confirmed and published a new rule that paves the way for more banks and building societies to adopt Confirmation of Payee (CoP), the bank account name checking service.