A new trade association representing the British payments industry, Payments UK, is being launched today. It will provide a single, authoritative voice for UK payments companies and will succeed the Payments Council.

Unlike the Payments Council, however, Payments UK will not have a quasi-regulatory role for strategy setting. The association will work closely with the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) in its remit to promote competition and innovation across the sector.

In particular, it will work collaboratively on the following policy areas:

• Continuing work with the payments industry and stakeholders to produce a customer focussed world-class vision for payments in the UK. Payments UK will publish a report later this year.
• Exploring ways that ‘richer data’ could help businesses, government and customers better manage their finances and operations.
• Understanding how Application Programme Interfaces (APIs) and banking data can be used to enable new, competitive services for customers.
• Helping to implement the new Payment Services Directive 2 legislation in the UK.

Maurice Cleaves, chief executive of Payments UK commented: “Payments UK will lead the collaborative drive to ensure that payments in the UK remain world-class, meeting the needs of all those who make or receive them. In a matter of years, the sector has been transformed from just a handful of players to many hundreds and the regulatory agenda has changed significantly. Payments UK is set up to enable the industry to navigate through such change.”

More information is available on the association's website: www.paymentsuk.org.uk