UK payments regulation, open banking, FCA, PSR, scheme governance
In short: The PSR annual plan 2026/27, published 29 April 2026, sets three priorities for what may be the regulator’s last full year as a standalone body: implementing card fee remedies, publishing the first-year evaluation of mandatory APP fraud reimbursement, and planning the consolidation of PSR functions into the Financial Conduct Authority. Commercial variable recurring…
After a year of testing frontier AI models and legal-specific platforms, the problem was not capability but structure. A law firm cannot be built around a model. It needs a method in which AI operates under controlled, auditable workflows, with the lawyer as the final gate.
Competition Appeal Tribunal [2026] CAT 11 Trial 2 pass-on findings and the Administrative Court ruling in [2026] EWHC 64 (Admin) on the Payment Systems Regulator’s power under section 54 FSBRA 2013 to cap cross-border interchange fees.
HMT’s 22 April 2026 response to the SM&CR reform consultation, with FCA PS26/6 and PRA PS12/26, sets a package aimed at a 50% compliance burden reduction. The scope question comes first: pure APIs and EMIs sit outside SM&CR because the regime attaches to FSMA Part 4A authorised persons. Only dual-regulated firms are in scope.
FCA targeted support went live on 6 April 2026. The FCA/ICO joint statement of 11 December 2025 requires firms to get UK GDPR, PECR and Article 22 compliance in place before they send a single communication.
The FCA opened consultation on CP26/13: Cryptoasset Perimeter Guidance on 15 April 2026 (closes 3 June 2026), completing the FCA side of the UK’s dual-track stablecoin regime. On the Bank of England side, the £20,000 retail cap, £10 million business cap and 60:40 backing split in the November 2025 proposals face sustained industry pushback.
HM Treasury’s 21 April 2026 package consolidates the PSR into the FCA and integrates payment services and e-money regulation with the FSMA 2000 framework.
Quick answer. The Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) is the UK regulator for designated payment systems under Part 5 of the Financial Services (Banking Reform) Act 2013 (FSBRA 2013). HM Treasury has consulted on abolishing the PSR and transferring its functions to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). The consultation closed on 20 October 2025 and a…
In short: The UK’s open banking advantage is an infrastructure advantage, not an interface one. A shared directory, a common dispute management system and a governed API standard, built out under the Retail Banking Market Investigation Order 2017, make the rails usable at scale. That infrastructure is the platform on which successor Smart Data regimes, enabled…
In short: UK payment firms reimbursed £173 million to APP fraud victims in year one of the PSR’s mandatory regime under Specific Direction 20. The payments sector bears all reimbursement costs, but APP fraud originates across telecoms, social media and messaging platforms. The Q2 2026 FCA/PSR review will consider whether the current single-sector liability model…
From 15 July 2026, BNPL firms must hold FCA authorisation or rely on the Temporary Permissions Regime. What PS26/1 and SI 2025/859 require now.
The FCA supplementary safeguarding regime under CASS 15 takes effect on 7 May 2026. This compliance checklist covers the operational requirements for payment institutions and e-money institutions: daily reconciliation, monthly reporting, annual audit, resolution packs and third-party due diligence.