A new payments strategy consultation - and it's on YouTube!

COVID-19 has been disastrous for many, but for the payments sector it has accelerated the digital agenda by some years. We have seen a significant decline in cash payments as consumers and businesses move into the digital space. A recent report by Accenture forecast that 11.6 billion transactions in the UK will move from cash to cards and digital by 2023 and that this could worth up to £155 billion in the UK alone.  

The sad truth is that, as we move away from cash to online systems, there are two huge downsides. First, those who rely on cash in their day-to-day lives and are not able to access the benefits available to those of us who are digitally connected, will fall further and further behind and secondly, for those of us who are willing and able to conduct our transactions in the digital space, there are more and increasingly sophisticated criminals out to take advantage of any weaknesses in the payments ecosystem.

It is therefore timely that the Payments Systems Regulator ("PSR"), which has now been around for six years, has this week published its new proposed five-year strategy which aims to deliver four strategic outcomes:

• Make appropriate payment services available to all;
• Ensure confidence in the UK payment system by ensuring that customers are adequately protected when making and receiving payments;
• Ensure effective competition in the payments sector; and
• Ensure that payment systems and efficient and commercially sustainable.

These are ambitious objectives and the actions set out to meet the the priorities are very high-level. It is, however, interesting to note that ,among the many "supports", competition has been pulled into sharp relief. The PSR states that it intends to shift its focus to promoting competition between payment systems and that it will consider the need to regulate if other measures to increase competition fail. This is something of a shot across the bows of the payment systems that currently dominate the market.

The consultation closes at 5pm on 10 September 2021 and the PSR aims to publish the final version before the end of 2021.

And yes - it is all available as presentations on YouTube so you can catch up with the detail of the strategy in between watching funny cats, Baby Shark (doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo) and "how to" videos.