UK payments regulation, open banking, FCA, PSR, scheme governance
FCA safeguarding reform is now weeks away from taking effect. The FCA published its Payments Regulatory Priorities report on 25 March 2026, confirming that keeping customers’ money safe remains its primary concern for the payments sector. The message to payment institutions and electronic money institutions is direct: the Safeguarding Supplementary Regime takes effect on 7…
On 26 February 2026, the Payments Vision Delivery Committee published the Payments Forward Plan, the first coordinated regulatory roadmap for UK payments since the National Payments Vision in November 2024. The Plan sets out what the Bank of England, the FCA, the PSR and HM Treasury intend to do across retail payments, wholesale payments and…
The EU agreed PSD3 and the Payment Services Regulation in November 2025, overhauling fraud liability, open banking and e-money rules. The UK is not bound by PSD3, but its own payments reform is heading in a similar direction. What firms operating across both regimes need to know.
To all my readers, thank you and goodbye. This blog is now an ex-blog.
Myanmar is currently largely a cash economy. In this post we consider the types of mobile banking and payments solutions we predict will first gain traction in the Myanmar market: remittance services and banking the unbanked. Outside Myanmar, the way people bank and pay has been revolutionised: from the introduction of credit cards, telephone banking and…
On Friday 5 September, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (which regulates financial institutions in Singapore) published a consultation on revising its existing guidelines on outsourcing. Responses are due by the 7th October.
Mobile payment is a topic close to my heart, so I am delighted to be joining a distinguished panel at the International Bar Association‘s annual conference in Dubai this afternoon to discuss developments in mobile payment from a comparative perspective. The session is being run jointly by the communications, banking and technology committees of the IBA…
Last week, three of the UK’s four mobile network operators announced a mobile marketing and payments joint venture. The venture is subject to regulatory approval, and is summarised in the press release as: Creation of a single ecosystem for m-commerce helping advertisers, retailers and banks to reach consumers through their mobile phones Consumers will be…
This week Visa Inc added significant incremental mobile payment and banking capabilities – acquiring Fundamo, a mobile money transfer software company and announcing a five year deal with Monitise. The Fundamo deal is designed to bolster Visa’s position in developing markets where the mobile operators are increasingly able to leverage the lack of a traditional banking infrastructure and their…
Mobile banking and payment is a recurrent theme for this blog. I have previously posted on rumours that the iPhone 5 might contain NFC technology, and mused on the possibilities unlocked by the integration of mobile payments with location-based offers and services. This week sees both the publication of the (Monitise sponsored) Future Foundation’s research on emerging trends in…
I was lucky enough to chair Olswang’s semi-annual CPD catch-up day for in-house lawyers today. It was a very interesting set of talks (for those who are interested I commented using twitter, see: #olswangcpd), which covered a wide range of topics: Session Speaker biographies Materials Employment update: the latest red tape changes and other hot topics (Daniel Aherne,…
News item topics are like buses – nothing happens for weeks or months, then everything happens at once. Following yesterday’s publication of the Phonepayplus annual plan and a market study, today Ofcom approved Phonepayplus’ 12th edition of its Code of Practice, which will become effective from 1 September 2011. For those not familiar with UK…