On 7 November 2025, the Payments Vision Delivery Committee (PVDC) published a policy paper setting out its strategy for the future of UK retail payments infrastructure. The PVDC comprises HM Treasury (HMT), and the Bank of England, the Prudential Regulation Authority and the Financial Conduct Authority (the Authorities).

Background

In November 2024, the Government published the National Payments Vision, setting out its ambitions for the UK’s payments sector and established the PVDC to work towards this. The National Payments Vision also set a deliverable for the PVDC to establish a new approach for the development and delivery of the UK’s retail payments infrastructure.

This paper establishes the PVDC’s strategic outcomes for future retail payments infrastructure, taking account of HMT and the Authorities’ objectives.

Overview

The PVDC’s strategy for retail payments infrastructure has five high-level strategic outcomes:

  • Outcome 1: Consumers and businesses have a greater choice of innovative and cost-effective payment options that meet their needs – to achieve this the next generation retail payments infrastructure will need to support delivery of a solution enabling a consumer to pay for goods and services directly from their account to the merchant’s; improve the efficiency and functionality of existing payment use cases, and facilitate new payment use cases; reduce barriers for consumers and businesses making cross-border payments; be ‘inclusive by design’; and, enable modular development and seamless integration of value-adding overlay services.
  • Outcome 2: Payments operate seamlessly as part of a diverse multi-money ecosystem, with interoperability between new and existing forms of digital money – to achieve this outcome the next generation retail payments infrastructure will need to support innovation in new forms of digital money and payments and facilitate interoperability across different types of digital money.
  • Outcome 3: Consumers and businesses can trust that their payments are protected from fraud and wider financial crime – to achieve this outcome the next generation retail payments infrastructure will need to support the fight against financial crime by enabling advanced capabilities in prevention, detection and resolution; enable the deployment of robust customer authentication mechanisms that give consumers and businesses confidence that their payments are secure; enable appropriate consumer protection across payment methods; provide secure and efficient data access and sharing.
  • Outcome 4: Participant firms have fair, transparent and non-discriminatory access to the infrastructure, maximising competition and scope for innovation across the payments ecosystem – to achieve this outcome the next generation retail payment infrastructure will need to support a range of commercially viable business models; provide easier access to Payments Service Providers and relevant other types of service provider that meet the necessary requirements; and, have a transparent, fair and predictable pricing methodology and governance framework.
  • Outcome 5: The payments ecosystem is operationally and financially resilient – to achieve this outcome the next generation retail payments infrastructure will need to deliver reliability, resilience and security at scale; include the highest levels of protection from cyber and wider threats; employ a funding model that enables ongoing investment in the infrastructure; have long-term financial resilience and economic viability with an appropriate approach to cost control; and, ensure monetary and financial stability, continue as with current practice for systemic retail payment systems to facilitate final settlement in central bank money for payments between customers of different money issuers.

Next steps

The paper sets out long-term goals for the UK’s retail payments infrastructure and makes clear that HMT and the Authorities will continue to coordinate over the next few years to achieve the outcomes identified.