Next-generation retail payments infrastructure: the account-to-account question
In short: The next-generation retail payments infrastructure is the new core clearing and messaging layer the UK plans to build to replace the systems behind Faster Payments and Bacs. The Retail Payments Infrastructure Board’s consultation, open from 25 June to 11 September 2026, asks how it should be designed, including to support account-to-account payments at the point of sale. An industry-led delivery company will build it.
Most UK payments at the checkout run on card networks, over clearing and messaging infrastructure whose basic design dates from the early 2000s. The UK has now decided to replace that infrastructure. On 25 June 2026 the Retail Payments Infrastructure Board (RPIB) opened a consultation on the design of the next-generation retail payments infrastructure. It asks how the new system should be designed, including how to enable account-to-account payment at the point of sale as a genuine alternative to cards. Responses close on 11 September 2026.
Key facts
- The RPIB consultation opened on 25 June 2026 and closes on 11 September 2026. Source: Bank of England.
- The consultation covers the core clearing and messaging layer only, not user-facing products, schemes, access or settlement. Source: RPIB consultation paper.
- Target new capabilities include account-to-account payments at the point of sale, improved cross-border payments and programmability. Source: RPIB consultation paper.
- Card payments were 64 per cent of all UK payments in 2024, with debit cards alone at 53 per cent. Source: UK Finance, UK Payment Markets 2025.
- Visa and Mastercard account for around 99 per cent of UK card payments. Source: Payment Systems Regulator.
| Body | Role in the new model | Who leads it |
|---|---|---|
| Payments Vision Delivery Committee (PVDC) | Sets the strategy and direction | HM Treasury, with the Bank of England, FCA and PSR |
| Retail Payments Infrastructure Board (RPIB) | Translates the strategy into a high-level design | Bank of England (Victoria Cleland) |
| Design Authority | Works the board’s direction up into the detailed design | Bank of England, with banks, building societies and fintechs |
| Delivery Company | Procures, funds and builds the infrastructure | Industry-owned and industry-led |
| Pay.UK | Operates the existing systems (Faster Payments, Bacs, Image Clearing System) | Industry |
How the UK reached the next-generation retail payments infrastructure
The consultation is the product of a two-year reset of how the UK governs its payment plumbing. The Future of Payments Review, led by Joe Garner and published on 22 November 2023, found a congested set of in-flight initiatives with no clear long-term goal for the infrastructure. It recommended that the government set a clearer strategic direction. HM Treasury responded with the National Payments Vision on 14 November 2024, built on three pillars of innovation, competition and security.
The Vision set up the Payments Vision Delivery Committee (PVDC), a cross-authority body chaired by HM Treasury that brings together the Bank of England, the FCA and the Payment Systems Regulator. On 15 July 2025 the PVDC announced the new delivery model, which splits who sets direction from who builds. The authorities set strategy. The Bank of England chairs the RPIB to turn that strategy into a design, and a new industry-led Delivery Company procures and funds the build. On 7 November 2025 the PVDC published its Strategy for Future Retail Payments Infrastructure, setting five outcomes covering choice, interoperability across forms of money, fraud protection, fair and non-discriminatory access, and resilience. This model replaces the earlier approach, in which Pay.UK led the New Payments Architecture. The PSR narrowed that programme, then closed its interbank infrastructure renewal work in 2025.
What the consultation actually decides
The consultation is about the core clearing and messaging layer, the layer that schemes, access and settlement build on. It does not prescribe the user-facing products, and it leaves schemes, access and settlement to separate work. Within that boundary it asks which payment journeys the new core should support, the key design choices and the priorities for delivery. The Bank of England chairs the RPIB as operator of the Real Time Gross Settlement service, not as supervisor. A Design Authority of banks, building societies and fintechs supports the board in working its direction up into the detailed design. Pay.UK keeps the current systems running while the design takes shape.
Alongside today’s journeys, the consultation names account-to-account payment at the point of sale as an additional option to cards, improved domestic and cross-border journeys, programmability, and interoperability between different forms of digital money. That last point is deliberately open. The Bank and HM Treasury have not decided whether to proceed with a digital pound, and a core that can carry new forms of money keeps that option alive. The design choice that will shape competition most is the fourth PVDC outcome, fair, transparent and non-discriminatory access. Who can connect, and on what terms, decides whether account-to-account payments at the point of sale ever become a real alternative rather than a niche.
Why account-to-account at the point of sale is the real prize
Cards still own the UK checkout. Card payments were 64 per cent of all UK payments in 2024, and debit cards alone were 53 per cent, on UK Finance figures. Visa and Mastercard together account for around 99 per cent of UK card payments. The PSR found in its market review of scheme and processing fees that the two schemes raised core fees by more than 25 per cent in real terms between 2017 and 2023. That is an extra cost to UK business of at least 170 million pounds a year. The FCA has since opened a competition investigation into the card schemes and a digital wallet provider, which our note on the FCA Competition Act investigation covers. Against that backdrop, a cheaper account-to-account route to the till is an obvious policy goal.
Account-to-account payments already exist in the UK through open banking, but they have not reached the checkout at scale. The current state of that framework is set out in our analysis of FCA open banking regulation. UK Finance records that pay by bank services are only starting to emerge and that there is no evidence of acceptance by major retailers yet. What is missing is not appetite but a shared core with the reach, reliability, consumer protection and pricing model that cards offer by default.
The international comparators show what closes that gap. The systems that have displaced cards or cash at scale, such as Brazil’s Pix and India’s UPI, each run on shared central infrastructure with a clear operator and governance model. That is exactly what the RPIB consultation is trying to design. If you are assessing how the new infrastructure affects a payments product, scheme or investment, our payments product, safeguarding and scheme governance page sets out where we help.
| System | Country | Live since | Who runs the core |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pix | Brazil | 2020 | Banco Central do Brasil (central bank) |
| UPI | India | 2016 | NPCI, bank-owned, overseen by the Reserve Bank of India |
| SEPA instant credit transfer | EU | Mandated by Regulation (EU) 2024/886 | Multiple clearing systems under a common rulebook |
Implications for banks, payment firms and merchants
The people who fund and connect to the core have the most at stake. The Delivery Company is industry-owned and will procure and fund the build. The banks and payment service providers that fund it are committing to both the cost and the design of the system they will compete on. Merchants who carry card acceptance costs are the natural beneficiaries of an account-to-account option at the till. Their voice in the consultation is what will keep the design honest about checkout reliability and dispute handling. Fintechs and open banking providers gain a shared core to build on, but only if the access terms let them reach it. Card schemes are the incumbents whose position the whole exercise is designed to challenge, though the timeline is measured in years, not months.
The regulatory backdrop is shifting in parallel. The PSR is to be consolidated into the FCA, as our note on the Financial Services and Markets Bill 2026 explains, and the wider sequencing is set out in the Payments Forward Plan. The RPIB falls outside that regulatory perimeter: it is an advisory board that designs, not a regulator that sets rules. The main risk is that an advisory board is designing infrastructure that no firm is compelled to fund.
Viewpoint
Governance and funding, not technology, are the hard part of this programme, and the New Payments Architecture that the PSR narrowed and then set aside is the evidence. The new model answers the governance question by separating direction from delivery, but it leaves two questions. The first is access. The PVDC’s own fourth outcome makes fair and non-discriminatory access the test. On the regulator’s own analysis the barriers to account-to-account retail payments have been functional capability, consumer protection, reliable access and a sustainable pricing model. The blueprint either solves those at the core or it does not. The second is funding. An industry-owned Delivery Company asks the firms that benefit least from change to pay for it, and that tension has stalled UK payments reform before. Watch how the access and pricing principles are drawn, because they decide whether account-to-account at the point of sale ever competes with cards. The UK is testing whether industry-led design can deliver what the EU has chosen to mandate by regulation, and the answer will not be clear for some years.
Frequently asked questions
What is the next-generation retail payments infrastructure?
It is the new core clearing and messaging layer the UK plans to build to replace the systems behind Faster Payments, Bacs and cheque clearing. The Retail Payments Infrastructure Board is consulting on its design, and a new industry-led Delivery Company will procure, fund and build it. Pay.UK continues to run the existing systems in the meantime.
When does the RPIB consultation close?
The consultation opened on 25 June 2026 and responses are due by 11 September 2026. The feedback will inform the high-level design and the next phase of work by the Delivery Company.
What is account-to-account payment at the point of sale?
It is paying a merchant directly from your bank account, rather than through a card network, when you check out in store or online. In the UK this runs through open banking. The consultation aims to build a core that supports it as a genuine alternative to cards.
Who governs the new payments infrastructure?
The Payments Vision Delivery Committee, chaired by HM Treasury with the Bank of England, FCA and PSR, sets the strategy. The Bank of England chairs the Retail Payments Infrastructure Board, which turns that strategy into a design. An industry-led Delivery Company builds it, and Pay.UK operates the existing systems.
How we can help
If you are responding to the consultation, or assessing what the next-generation retail payments infrastructure means for a payments product, scheme or investment, contact Rob Bratby at Bratby Law.
