HM Treasury has published statutory recommendations for the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) on how payments regulation should support the government’s growth and international competitiveness agenda, as set out in the National Payments Vision. The publication also includes a joint FCA-PSR response updating on delivery, centred on reducing regulatory congestion, accelerating Open Banking and Open Finance, maintaining strong consumer protection and fraud prevention, and progressing work on future retail payments infrastructure. The recommendations ask the FCA and PSR to strengthen coordination, including FCA-led management of overlaps between the regulators’ work on fraud and Open Banking policy, and note the government’s support for the FCA to fulfil the function of the UK’s regulator for Open Banking while maintaining cooperation with the PSR on designated payment systems. The joint response reports early consolidation of PSR functions into the FCA where possible, revised payments cooperation arrangements through an updated Memorandum of Understanding with the Bank of England and Prudential Regulation Authority, and ongoing joint work on digital wallets alongside the Competition and Markets Authority. Open Banking governance has been streamlined through a new FCA department incorporating FCA and PSR capabilities and replacing the Joint Regulatory Oversight Committee, alongside industry work on variable recurring payments, including support for an industry-led group funded by 31 parties to establish a new organisation to facilitate phase 1 go-live. On consumer protection, the regulators describe efforts to expand payments data sharing to combat fraud and provide initial outcomes from the PSR’s authorised push payment fraud reimbursement requirements, which came into effect in October 2024, including 88% of in-scope losses returned in the first ten months and 83% of claims closed within five business days, with 126,000 claims made between October 2024 and June 2025. Retail infrastructure work has progressed via a new public and private sector partnership model, short-term enhancements to Faster Payments led by Pay.UK, and a strategy for retail payments infrastructure to be taken forward through the Bank-chaired Retail Payments Infrastructure Board. Next steps include developing a Statutory Instrument with HM Treasury and a longer-term Open Banking regulatory framework, publication of an open finance roadmap in early 2026 with regulatory foundations in place during 2027, and an independent review of the PSR’s authorised push payment scam policies that began in October 2025 and is due to report by Q3 2026.

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