What Is Prompting The Growth in Demand For Pay by Bank?
Issue 735: 17 July 2025
What Is Prompting The Growth in Demand For Pay by Bank?
At Money 20/20 2025 in Amsterdam, Token.io CEO Todd Clyde spoke with FinextraTV about the growing momentum behind Pay by Bank.
He explained what Pay by Bank entails, highlighted global initiatives fueling its rise, and discussed how the technology has advanced—offering insights into what these developments could mean for the future of payments.
Pay.UK releases Annual Report 2024
Pay.UK have published their Annual Report and Financial Statements 2024, highlighting their achievements and financial performance over the year, and the progress against its strategic priorities.
Pay.UK lists some of its achievements as:
Delivering operational availability at more than 99.9% and processed 12 billion retail payments (2023: 11.4 billion) to a value of just over £10.2 trillion (2023: 9.5 trillion).
A new daily transaction record of 138.5 million Bacs items on 29 November 2024, meanwhile the FPS processed a record total annual transaction volume of 5.1 billion (2023: 4.5 billion), marking the first year that the service crossed the 5 billion transaction threshold.
Monthly records set on three separate occasions, with 461 million FPS payments made in December 2024.
Total number of directly connected customers now equals 46 for FPS, 32 for Bacs and 20 for ICS.
1.2 million customers and small businesses using the Current Account Switch Service.
Expanded the account name-checking service, Confirmation of Payee, to reduce misdirected payments and certain types of push payment fraud, supporting over 300 payment service providers (PSPs) in implementing the service, and further developing a new aggregator model to facilitate expansion. The service reached the 2 billion checks milestone in 2024 with an average of over 2 million Confirmation of Payee checks every day.
Read the full report here: Pay.UK releases Annual Report 2024.
Fine levied on UK Financial Market Infrastructure firm
Last week Finextra reported that the Bank of England has fined UK payments operator Vocalink £11.9 million for failing to meet a deadline to fix risk management weaknesses.
Vocalink, a Mastercard subsidiary responsible for key UK payment systems, did not fully comply with a 2022 directive from the Bank due to flaws in its governance and controls.
This marks the first time the Bank has fined a systemically important financial market infrastructure firm.
Although the original fine was £20 million, it was reduced by 45% because Vocalink cooperated and settled.
The company stated that the issues were identified in 2020, have since been addressed, and did not affect service delivery.
Consultation Launched by AusPayNet and AP+ on Australia's A2A Payments Future
The Australian Payments Network (AusPayNet) and Australian Payments Plus (AP+) have launched a consultation seeking input from stakeholders and end-users on the future of account-to-account (A2A) payments in Australia.
This initiative follows the Reserve Bank of Australia's call for clearer planning around the phase-out of the Bulk Electronic Clearing System (Becs), which supports essential transactions like welfare, salary, and bill payments.
The consultation aims to better understand the current and future needs of consumers, businesses, governments, and other stakeholders, and to help guide the strategic development of A2A payments.
The RBA and AP+ both emphasise the importance of inclusive feedback to modernise the system in the public interest.
Building the Future Together: A Collaborative Model for Next-Generation Payments Infrastructure
In November 2024, the UK government released its National Payments Vision to build a world-leading, innovative, and secure payments ecosystem.
To deliver this, it formed the Payments Vision Delivery Committee, backed by a 30-member Vision Engagement Group.
The Committee has published a new collaborative model combining public and private expertise to develop next-generation UK retail payments infrastructure, while also enhancing the UK’s current Faster Payments System.
Informed by global and domestic insights, this initiative aligns with the UK's broader Financial Services Growth and Competitiveness Strategy, ensuring close coordination across regulators, especially ahead of the PSR's integration into the FCA.
More: Building the Future Together: A Collaborative Model for Next-Generation Payments Infrastructure
PSR Consultation: Revoking the requirement for a competitive procurement
The Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) believe that a requirement for a competitive tender under SD4 may no longer be the most effective way to address risks from limited competition in LINK’s central infrastructure supply.
While removing this requirement could strengthen the supplier’s position, regulators believe these risks are better managed through active oversight.
Given falling cash withdrawals and reduced scheme revenues, revoking SD4 is under consideration.
Stakeholders are invited to share their views, particularly on how regulatory supervision could help mitigate risks to competition, innovation, and end-user outcomes.
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Payment Systems Regulator publishes Annual Report and Accounts for 2024-25
The Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) has published its 2024–25 Annual Report and Accounts, highlighting a year of strategic progress centred on promoting competition, fostering innovation, and supporting growth.
Among the key achievements, Confirmation of Payee adoption rose to cover 99% of Faster Payments transactions. The organisation also rolled out globally recognised reforms to tackle authorised push payment (APP) fraud — enhancing consumer protection, supporting victims, and placing stronger incentives on payment firms to prevent fraud.
Progress continued on open banking initiatives, in close coordination with the FCA. Significant steps were also taken in reviewing card fees, with a focus on the impact of payment costs on retailers — particularly small businesses — and how these affect investment and growth potential.
Looking ahead, the organisation remains committed to its mission as it moves towards closer consolidation with the FCA.
JP Morgan plan to charge fintechs for customer data
JP Morgan plans to charge companies for access to its customers’ bank account data, sending pricing sheets to data aggregators.
Fees will vary by use case, with payment firms facing the highest costs. A JP Morgan spokesperson emphasized their investment in secure systems and ongoing collaboration with the ecosystem.
If implemented later this year, the fees could disrupt fintechs and payment platforms that currently rely on free data access.
While U.S. banks push for lighter regulation, such fees may conflict with open banking principles in regions like the EU and UK, where policies promote broader third-party data access.
Revolut Enables Money Transfers to China Through Alipay
Revolut has partnered with Ant International to enable global users to send money to China in yuan via the Alipay platform. Through the Revolut app's 'Send International' feature, users can select China as the destination, choose Alipay as the method, and enter the recipient’s details. The service charges a fee of 0.15% for standard users and 0.12% for premium users. Revolut says the partnership highlights its commitment to offering fast, secure, and affordable cross-border money transfers.
Australia to commence multiple trials of tokenised asset settlement and CBDC
Project Acacia, a collaboration between the Reserve Bank of Australia and the Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre (DFCRC), has selected 14 participants to trial tokenised asset settlements in financial markets.
Of 24 chosen use cases, 19 will involve real transactions using assets such as fixed income, private markets, trade receivables, and carbon credits, while five will be proof-of-concept simulations.
Settlement assets include stablecoins, bank deposit tokens, and a pilot wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC), tested across multiple distributed ledger platforms.
The project aims to explore how digital money and new payment systems could enhance wholesale markets.
Testing will run for six months, with findings due in early 2026.
All in on Substack
Last week the Northey Point blog was merged with the Payments:Unpacked newsletter - Northey Point and Mike Chambers are now all in on Substack!
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