Payments UK has published its latest World Class Payments report, about improving the access arrangements to UK payment systems for payment service providers (PSPs).

The report focuses on the concept of open access, which would provide the optimum arrangements for the 2,500 PSPs that potentially need to access UK payment systems. Payments UK says this would enable them to be “competitive and innovative without compromising the resilience and security of the payments infrastructure”.

Work has already been undertaken to support open access but the report lists four main challenges for further implementation of open access in the UK:

1. industry agreement on the way forward and a commitment to deliver;
2. a carefully planned and managed transition plan would have to be agreed;
3. consensus would have to be reached on the funding model to deliver change; and
4. collaboration would have to be achieved between diverse and sometimes competing industry players across a divergent payments market.

“A clear conclusion from our work with both existing and potential users of payment systems in the UK has highlighted open access as a crucial enabler to support healthy competition and innovation in the industry. Delivering further improvements to enable access to payment systems does not come without its challenges, but achieving it would boost competition which will, in turn, ultimately benefit customers,” said Payments UK’s Tim Yudin.

Payments UK has shared its research on the subject with the Payments Strategy Forum (PSF), which is currently examining whether, and how, payment systems can be developed to simplify access.