Over the last two years the UK has had its ambition clearly laid out in the National Payments Vision: consumers and businesses should have real choice in how they pay, and account-to-account payments should become a ubiquitous option. UK Payments Initiative (UKPI) – launched in June this year with wide backing from regulators and the ecosystem – is turning the existing Open Banking standards framework into a commercial, trusted and scalable payment method to make account-to-account payments a reality for the UK.
In the last six months we have built a company owned by 25 shareholders – including the nine largest banks in the UK and 16 payment initiation service providers (PISPs) – who are committed to making Open Banking use cases gain traction and scale. At our core sits our scheme rulebook – a multi-lateral agreement setting out the governance and commercial details overseeing Open Banking transactions. Our rulebook has provided clarity for both sides of the ecosystem on how transactions should be handled, who communicates to customers and merchants, and where liability lies. Importantly, our pricing framework has provided incentives for both sides of the market to invest in Open Banking recurring payments and transparency for merchants considering investing in relationships with PISPs.
Richard Koch, managing director, UK Payments Initiative
As with any start-up, we began with an achievable scope – building commercial variable recurring payments into everyday use cases, including regulated financial services, utilities, rail journeys, government payments and charity donations. Starting in well-understood sectors with strong existing business-customer relationships has allowed us to support our participants in onboarding to the scheme, refine technical requirements and reporting, while proving the end-to-end capability of this new recurring payment type. This does not represent a lack of ambition for UKPI – I firmly believe that delivery discipline in this early wave will allow us to build the foundation blocks for a much greater account-to-account ecosystem.
The commercial prize for the economy is significant. For businesses who have been relying on direct debits and card on file for decades, Open Banking payments can reduce friction, create more predictable money flows and offer a credible alternative to card-based and direct debit commercial models. For consumers, repeat Open Banking payments offer secure bank-account payments within agreed parameters – more control over who can collect money, how much can be taken and for how long. In the right use cases it can support payments that better fit real-life situations, such as bill charging that can adjust to people’s circumstances.
We are now taking these learnings from our live activity and expanding our proposition into more complex retail environments. The direction is clear: the market wants account-to-account payments to move into everyday commerce – retail, ecommerce, subscriptions and over time, point of sale journeys. A broader set of uses introduces more varied risks: goods and services disputes, fulfilment issues, billing errors, fraud and insolvency. Our focus is to build a proportionate model to manage these risks that leans into the existing protections provided by merchants and marketplaces.
We are engaging directly with merchants, participants and regulators to define purchase protection, dispute resolution and pricing. These will all be key determinants of adoption of account-to-account payments from both merchants and consumers. UKPI’s approach is to focus on clear customer journeys and operational reliability then strengthen recognition – trust has to be earned through smooth and resilient user experience.
The UK has an opportunity to create a payments market with more competition, innovation and greater resilience, while giving businesses and consumers more choice. But that will only happen if the industry continues to collaborate with urgency and realism. UKPI’s role is to provide a scheme layer: the rules, standards, commercial model and governance that turns this collaboration into adoption of account-to-account.
We need to build more participants and merchants into the ecosystem by building a commercially compelling product set, underpinned by a credible scheme that is worthy of consumer trust. That is how account-to-account payments will move from vision to everyday use.
Richard Koch is managing director of UK Payments Initiative
UK Payments Initiative is an Industry Partner of Open Banking Expo UK & Europe 2026. Catch Richard and his UKPI colleagues on stage across the two-day Expo. Find out more and get your ticket here.
