On 20 July 2023, the Bank of England (BoE) published a speech by Victoria Cleland (Executive Director of Payments) entitled ‘Payments: it’s all change’.

In her speech Victoria Cleland thanks the industry for their commitment to the recent migration to the ISO 20022 global financial messaging standard which marks the first stage in the major transformation programme to renew the Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) system. She outlines further benefits to be delivered and flags the importance of collaboration for realising these benefits in the future.

She also notes that the BoE’s vision also encapsulates RTGS acting as an open platform for change and innovation. Following feedback to the BoE’s 2022 consultation on the future roadmap for RTGS, it is prioritising work to assess several innovative features. Top of the list are new ways to connect to RTGS, a synchronisation interface to connect RTGS with other ledgers, and extended RTGS operating hours. If implemented, they will achieve ever-higher degrees of resilience and facilitate industry’s innovation and competition: they will be key to helping the BoE deliver wholesale enhanced digital money.