The UK’s Retail Payments Infrastructure Board has opened a consultation on the design of the country’s next-generation retail payments infrastructure. Announced on June 25, the work is intended to shape a high-level blueprint for the shared clearing and messaging foundation that will support future payment services.
The consultation puts practical payment journeys at the center of the design. The Bank of England said the proposed infrastructure could support account-to-account payments at the point of sale as an additional option to cards, alongside enhanced cross-border payments and existing retail payment functions.
From infrastructure consultation to delivery blueprint
The board is seeking views on which payment journeys the platform should support, the main design choices and the order of priorities. Responses are due by September 11, 2026. The resulting blueprint is expected to guide a new industry-led Delivery Company that will own and lead implementation of the core infrastructure.
This separates design consultation from procurement and deployment. No replacement system went live on June 25, and the announcement does not set a migration date. Pay.UK is expected to continue operating Faster Payments, Bacs and the Image Clearing System while the next-generation platform is developed.
That continuity is operationally important. Banks, payment service providers and merchants need enough certainty to maintain current payment journeys while preparing for different access models, message standards and service requirements. A staged approach also reduces the risk that infrastructure modernization is mistaken for an immediate cutover.
Standards will determine who can build on the platform
The consultation paper describes common standards as technical, operational and service requirements that let participants interact consistently. It identifies areas such as messaging and data, timing, service levels, security and fraud controls, and cites ISO 20022 message formats as an example.
For payment providers, these choices will influence more than back-office connectivity. Consistent data and response standards can affect reconciliation, fraud controls, payment status information and the ability to orchestrate services across multiple providers. The commercial value will depend on whether the final design combines interoperability with enough room for providers to differentiate their products.
Access and governance will be equally consequential. The board is chaired by the Bank of England and includes representatives from banks, building societies, payment service providers, fintechs and merchants. Its recommendations will therefore need to balance resilience and system-wide coordination against the cost and complexity of participation for smaller firms.
Digital money enters the same design discussion
The Bank of England said the infrastructure should support existing and emerging forms of digital money. The consultation paper specifically defines regulated sterling stablecoins and discusses interoperability between forms of money, placing stablecoin payments within the broader infrastructure design rather than treating them as a wholly separate rail.
That does not mean stablecoins have been approved for direct access or that a specific settlement model has been chosen. It means the blueprint must consider how new regulated forms of money could interact with common standards, payment journeys and central-bank-money settlement where practical and available.
The immediate outcome is a design process, not a finished network. Its significance lies in the scope of the questions now being formalized: how UK retail payments can add account-to-account point-of-sale choice, improve cross-border journeys and accommodate digital money without weakening resilience or fragmenting standards.