The ACT welcomes the establishment of the new Payments Systems Regulator and its three statutory objectives (covering competition; development and innovation; operation in the interests of service-users). We note that for each of these three objectives a core element is the interests of service-users. The ACT sees this strong focus on end users as very helpful for corporate users.
By and large the ACT regards the UK payments systems as working well. The key questions remain could the systems be working even better, providing better quality of service, more variations and flexibility, better reliability, and more cost effectively?
We note that the PSR has concerns which include the ownership structure, pace of innovation and access to payment systems. We share these concerns to the extent that even if the current systems are not broken there is a danger that some of the issues identified in the consultation papers could be holding back the service offered to end users.
