Joseph Bitrus’ Post

UK Government Launches National Payments Vision to Drive Growth The UK Government has unveiled its National Payments Vision, outlining ambitions to position the UK’s payments sector as a global leader while supporting economic growth. 🔸Why Payments Matter Payments are the backbone of the UK economy, enabling seamless transactions in our daily lives and fostering innovation in some of the nation’s fastest-growing businesses. 🔸What the Vision Aims to Achieve Responding to the 2023 Future of Payments Review, led by Joe Garner, the Vision focuses on: 🔹 Addressing key challenges across the payments landscape. 🔹 Delivering innovative, world-leading payment solutions. 🔹 Supporting businesses and individuals with robust, efficient systems. 🔸Driving Growth Through Payments 🔹This initiative recognizes payments as a critical enabler of economic growth, aiming to create an ecosystem that benefits consumers, businesses, and the broader UK economy. 🔹The National Payments Vision aims to set the stage for the UK to lead on innovation, resilience, and efficiency in payments. https://lnkd.in/eHYP2QJq #Payments #Innovation #EconomicGrowth #FutureOfFinance #UKLeadership

It's encouraging to see the UK government addressing the critical issue of late payments with renewed focus. Late payments have long been a significant burden on SMEs, hindering cash flow and stunting growth. Every year, late payments cause 50,000 UK businesses to close, creating immense pressure on the backbone of the economy. This renewed legislative push is a welcome step toward improving the financial health of SMEs and ensuring they have the support needed to thrive. We hope this leads to a more resilient and sustainable business environment for all. #SMEFinance #LatePayments #Fintech #CashFlow #BusinessResilience https://lnkd.in/eyFaWGAU

For anyone interested in the wonderful world of Payments, I highly recommend grabbing a hot drink and reading the newly published National Payments Vision. The industry has waited patiently since the publication of the Garner review late in 2023 and this seems a thoroughly decent publication that is most certainly setting a positive path for Payments in the UK. BUT - it's just a start and it will require significant work from all stakeholders involved in Payments to turn these 40 pages into a real UK growth differentiator. From my experience in the industry I'm pretty sure the desire, capability and appetite exist to achieve this! What I think we need to show is support and positivity. A 'can-do' (and 'want-to') attitude will go a long way to making our Payments ecosystem safe, secure, resilient and a magnet for future investment in the UK - a good thing for all of us... (Yes - I read the Mansion House speech too - also not bad) Things that caught my eye: - Focus on innovation, competition and security as key pillars. Trust in the ecosystem above all. - Honesty where things haven't gone perfectly with paths to fix (e.g. NPA). - Desire to align and simplify regulation and regulatory programmes - a big positive. - Recognition that there are some great initiatives in train, let's not throw the baby out and keep these going with consumer outcomes and safety front of mind. - New governance to drive this forward - I think we'll need care here. Important we don't just replace one flag with another without any underlying change. - I like the references and consideration of digital inclusion - "no one left behind in an increasingly digital society". What are your thoughts? Let me know #NationalPaymentsVision #HMT #payments

Very encouraged by HM Treasury's National Payments Vision policy paper published this morning, outlining its ambition for a world-leading payments ecosystem for the UK to drive economic growth and maintain its global leadership in financial services - enabled through tackling regulatory inefficiencies, modernising infrastructure, increasing security and fostering innovation. This resonates very well with the groundbreaking UK Regulated Liability Network (RLN) experimentation phase initiative we at DXC Technology and our partners delivered for UK Finance and 11 of its member institutions in September this year enabling the support of tokenised commercial bank deposits/digital currencies, integrating distributed ledger technology (DLT) with existing payment rails and frameworks like Open Banking/FPS to improve transaction efficiency and combat fraud (e.g. delivery vs payment), increase security and encourage new fintech products. We are excited to keep collaborating with our partners, industry bodies, financial services institutions, regulators and fintechs to contribute to the realization of the National Payments Vision! https://lnkd.in/eGWvMASt #payments #financialservices #innovation #digitaltransfomation #RLN #RegulatedLiabilityNetwork #UKRLN #weareDXC

The UK government will soon unveil plans to regulate the Buy Now Pay Later industry, aiming to protect consumers and provide clarity for the sector. Afterpay Abound #UKGovernment #BNPL #ConsumerProtection #Regulation #FinancialStability #FinancialSector #BuyNowPayLater #BNPLRegulation #EconomicPolicy #UKTreasury #FinancialServices #LabourGovernment #StakeholderCollaboration #EconomicSecretary #RegulatoryImplementation #UKParliament #ConsumerDebt #FinancialStability #RegulatoryOversight #YoungConsumers

Every strong economy relies on effective payments. The National Payments Vision therefore sets out the government’s ambitions for this vital sector, to achieve a trusted, world-leading payments ecosystem delivered on next generation technology, where consumers and businesses have a choice of payment methods to meet their needs. Almost 50 billion payments were made in the UK last year by consumers and businesses. That’s around 1500 transactions every second. But while most of us will keep a close eye on what we’re spending, we rarely need to give a second thought to how that payment is made. And that’s the way it should be. Payments – whether by cash, cheque, card or bank transfer – should just work. But there is a lot that goes on behind the scenes to deliver a seamless and trusted experience to consumers. The underlying infrastructure must be kept secure and resilient, with consumers protected if something goes wrong. It is vital that payment providers are incentivised to innovate to provide efficient and effective products and services. Recent years have seen huge changes in the way we pay, with the UK often leading the way globally. Mobile banking, contactless payments and digital wallets, for example, have dramatically increased convenience. And significant further technological developments are now on the horizon that offer huge potential for further innovation. These new technologies are likely to transform the way we pay for goods and services. Determined to ensure that the UK is in a strong position to seize these opportunities – doing so will benefit users of these payment systems as well innovative firms across the financial services sector...

The Labour Party published their plan for financial services, Financing Growth, on 31 January 2024. The plan calls out that the financial services sector contributed to 12% of the UK’s economic output in 2023. There is a significant focus on payments, highlighting the importance of the sector in the overall economy. Labour's plan continues to take the payments sector on the same trajectory, ensuring in-flight initiatives can continue. The plan focuses on tackling fraud collaboratively and regulating the Buy Now Pay Later sector both seeking to address consumer loss and make payments in the UK a better and safer experience. There is also recognition of what a great sector the UK has in payments and fintech, and explores how we can compete on the international stage and become one of the UK's best exports. Read KPMG UK's full blog now: http://spkl.io/60404Ikw8

The UK Government has just published its #NationalPaymentsVision. This comprehensive document stresses the importance of: Trust; Next Generation Tech; more Choice. The National Payments Vision has three main pillars designed to guide future activity: Innovation, Competition, Security. https://lnkd.in/eVqvE3yN I encourage all those with an interest in #Payments to study this new Vision carefully. It provides a governmental response to points raised in the Garner Payments Review. A new Payments Vision Delivery Committee has been created with HM Treasury taking a greater leadership role. The Vision clarifies the role of individual regulators, places the #FCA is charge of #OpenBanking This National Payments Vision sets out a direction to ensure the UK is a world leader in payments. The national payments vision supports the Governments #Growth agenda. Tony Craddock Paul RodgersThe Payments AssociationVendorcomUK Finance

Is the decline of cash a silent crisis? The Treasury Committee’s inquiry into cash acceptance raises vital questions about balancing innovation with inclusion. While digital payments grow, 3.1 million people in the UK still rely entirely on cash, a lifeline for vulnerable groups like those with health challenges or at risk of economic abuse. As cash usage declines, rising infrastructure costs could disrupt businesses and consumers. Some view cash acceptance as essential for resilience during outages, but should businesses be required to accept it? For small firms, this might create logistical and financial challenges. The inquiry asks: 👉 Which groups or sectors would suffer most if cash disappears? 👉 Should cash acceptance be mandatory? 👉 Are we prepared for overreliance on digital payments? This debate is about more than payments, it’s about equity and preparedness. What’s your view? Should cash remain protected, or is digital dominance inevitable? If you want to submit evidence to support your view or that of your business, the deadline to do so is today, with the first session taking place Wednesday 4th December. #cashacceptance #inclusion #paymentspolicy

Interesting to see the new strategic vision from Pay.UK, will be interesting to see how long this takes to transition from a vision to a reality for the UK payments ecosystem.