The publication of the first ever Payments Roadmap – An Initial Report today spells out the Payments Council's revolutionary approach towards assessing the options for building on the world leading payment services currently used by UK customers.

The council believe that the Roadmap will be a ground breaking document, and is designed to be a mechanism to shape the nation's payments infrastructure in a way that provides the maximum benefits to everyone who makes and receives payments. Today's initial report sets out the analytical and consultative approach to be taken by the Payments Council to ensure that long term decisions about, and investments in, the nation's payments infrastructure are the right ones.

To encourage debate and broad consultation this initial Roadmap report sets out six clear options that range from restructuring to revolutionising the UK's payments infrastructure. It looks forward over the next five and 10 years, outlining what might fall in the competitive versus the collaborative space. Each of the six options, or "end states" would deliver different potential customer benefits.

The depth of the analysis is shown by the five layer model they are using to examine the options:

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Over the coming months the Payments Council intends to consult with government, business, charity and consumer representative groups to better understand their future payments needs. The first full version of the Roadmap is planned to be published in Q1 next year.

To ensure innovation in the short term, the Roadmap will also include a three year plan to provide new customer benefits and move the infrastructure towards the agreed end state.  Work will include: potentially providing additional reference information when a payment is made which might benefit businesses, charities or government; and a cost benefit analysis of account number portability.

A full report will be produced in 1Q 2014.