HMRC making ‘good progress’ on re-tender process for Open Banking contract

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has said it is making “good progress” on the process of re-tendering its Open Banking services contract, with the end-date approaching at the end of this month.

Ecospend won the contract to provide Open Banking services to HMRC back in February 2021, making it the first provider globally to support with the implementation of Open Banking payments in a government department.

At the time, it was also the largest government Open Banking contract that had been awarded.

According to the contract summary, which is available on the government’s ‘Contracts finder’ site, the contract start date is logged as 1 March 2021, and the end date is 29 February 2024. The contract was awarded on a “2+1 year period” basis.

HMRC has confirmed it will make use of Crown Commercial Services’ (CCS) new Open Banking Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS) to award the contract.

In January, Ecospend, which is owned by Trustly, became the first Open Banking provider to be accepted onto CCS’ new DPS, meaning that public sector bodies can get access to its services and solutions.

An HMRC spokesperson told Open Banking Expo: “We’re continuing to make good progress with the retender process for our Open Banking services, building on positive market engagement sessions at the end of 2023.

“We’re looking forward to making use of the CCS Dynamic Purchasing system from next month and awarding the contract to the successful supplier later this year.”

Earlier this month, Ecospend reported that through its Pay by Bank technology, more than one million customers made £3.3 billion in tax payments to HMRC since the start of 2024 to the end of January.