Generative AI
Claude for Financial Services: What you need to know
On 15 July 2025, the Bank of England issued a statement entitled A New Approach to Retail Payments Infrastructure. As part of this statement, the Bank of England and HMT announced a new delivery model and way forward for the UK’s retail payments infrastructure — a move widely welcomed across the industry.
This marks a decisive shift toward a more collaborative and constructive approach to designing and delivering next-generation payment systems. Building on the foundations laid by the National Payments Vision, the announcement reflects months of engagement between public authorities, industry participants and the Payments Vision Delivery Committee (PVDC). This marks a new beginning with a unified approach for delivery.
The path forward
The proposed model introduces a clear delineation of responsibilities between public authorities and the private sector, designed to accelerate delivery and enhance accountability.
This coherent governance framework ensures input from all parts of the ecosystem: banks, fintechs, corporates and end-users.
Pay.UK will continue its essential role as operator of the UK’s existing payment systems (Faster Payments, Bacs and ICS), maintaining continuity, stability and operational resilience throughout the transition.
Central to this model is the creation of a new Retail Payments Infrastructure Board, chaired by the Bank of England, which will be responsible for translating strategic direction into technical design.
Supporting this, a new industry-led delivery company will be formed to lead procurement and oversee implementation of the next-generation infrastructure.
Looking ahead, the Payments Vision Delivery Committee will define strategic direction.
It’s expected to publish a strategic framework this autumn, aligned to the National Payments Vision’s pillars of innovation, competition and security.
By the end of the year, a comprehensive Payments Forward Plan will outline a sequenced roadmap for retail and wholesale payments infrastructure — including the integration of digital assets.
Stakeholder engagement will remain central to the process, with the Vision Engagement Group continuing to gather feedback from across the ecosystem and ensure transparency and participation.
This new model combines strategic leadership from public authorities, technical oversight by the Bank of England and delivery execution by private sector experts. It’s closely aligned with wider policy objectives, including the potential introduction of a digital pound (CBDC).
“The new framework, led by the Bank of England and coupled with strong industry collaboration, is key to providing strategic direction and ongoing commitment to the National Payments Vision. We support establishing a new industry-led delivery company. This will unlock investment into our payments infrastructure and support greater innovation in retail payments and the future of money, including digital and tokenized forms. We look forward to continuing to work alongside the government, the Bank of England and other stakeholders, to ensure the UK retain its position as a world leader in payments.”
— Jana Mackintosh, Managing Director Payments and Innovation, UK Finance
"We now have clear governance and responsibilities. Critically, the new Retail Payments Infrastructure Board will include FinTech, merchant and consumer interests and will provide a whole system view to translate the public authorities' strategy into a blueprint and hold the new Delivery Company to account on implementation. With a strategy expected in the autumn, the new Board should be well placed to draw up plans to enable rapid progress on new infrastructure for cheaper, safer, smarter payments including open banking, smart data, agentic AI and stablecoin."
— Adam Jackson, Chief Strategy Officer, Innovate Finance
"The Chancellor has committed to the long-term goals the UK needs. A modernized financial system - one that is faster, more open and easier to navigate - will drive growth, attract global investment and deliver better outcomes for consumers and growing businesses alike. OBL supports the creation of the Retail Payments Infrastructure Board and the new delivery company for the next-generation of payments infrastructure as an important next step."
— Henk Van Hulle, Chief Executive Officer Open Banking Ltd.
The benefits and why it matters
This is a fundamental reset in how the UK designs, governs and delivers its payments infrastructure. It reflects the importance of innovation and the need for future-ready platforms that support new forms of money, embedded finance and a more intelligent, interoperable payments landscape. This is a bold move in the right direction.
At Thoughtworks, we welcome this announcement as a timely evolution of the UK’s payments ecosystem.
Several elements stand out:
- Role clarity and governance. The division of responsibilities — between strategy (PVDC), governance (Retail Payments Infrastructure Board), delivery (industry-led Delivery Company) and operations (Pay.UK) — is both logical and necessary. It promises to accelerate execution and avoid historical bottlenecks.
- Public–private partnership. Embedding public-private collaboration throughout the model, from consultation to delivery, acknowledges the complexity of modern payments and the need for co-design. It reinforces the importance of aligning innovation with resilience.
- Commitment to unlocking innovation in money and payments. The explicit commitment to integrating new forms of digital money, alongside initiatives like the digital pound, positions the UK to lead in the next phase of global payments evolution.
”HMT and regulators have listened. This is a thoughtful and pragmatic evolution, not revolutionary, but absolutely necessary. It acknowledges structural flaws in the current model while leveraging the Bank of England’s infrastructure expertise, particularly in RTGS. Crucially, it embeds public–private collaboration at the heart of delivery and recognizes the clear distinction between maintaining legacy systems and building next-generation infrastructure.”
— Tony Craddock, Director General, The Payments Association
“This week’s announcement by the Payments Vision Delivery Committee – which includes the PSR as a member – is an important step forward. The Committee has agreed an innovative new model to deliver the next generation of UK retail payments infrastructure, with a strong focus on promoting innovation, competition and security. The new model embeds public and private sector collaboration and involves engaging stakeholders across the broad ecosystem, including users. We look forward to working with partners - including the Financial Conduct Authority and Bank of England – to support delivery of this new model and approach.”
— Dan Moore, Head of Strategy, Analysis and Engagement, Payment Systems Regulator
How can execution be accelerated?
While the structure is sound and the intent clear, success will hinge on the technology strategy and execution.
In Thoughtworks’ view, three areas require more focus:
1. Defining the target state.
What exactly constitutes “next-generation” infrastructure? A clear articulation of architectural principles and capabilities is essential to shape design decisions and measure progress.
2. Making technology driven design choices.
Governance alone will not deliver outcomes. It will be important to explore the art of the possible of the latest technologies such as:
Cloud-native infrastructure for scale and resilience.
Standardized, open APIs to encourage innovation and interoperability.
Embedded trust layers — including digital ID, fraud prevention and consent management.
Tokenization frameworks and pathways for integrating new forms of digital money and programmable payments.
3. Transition planning.
A pragmatic and detailed migration plan is crucial. We must ensure continuity while bridging legacy systems to new infrastructure. Realistic timelines and phased delivery are key to minimizing disruption.
"We appreciate recent announcements of a long overdue new delivery model for the upgrade of the UK’s Retail Payment Infrastructure to support and underpin the evolution of new clearing and settlement systems and the wider payments innovation agenda. Translating policy objectives and a strategic framework into a flexible, resilient and future-proof functional and technical design will be an important next step on our journey to implement the National Payments Vision. We are fully committed to supporting this process.”
— Michael Mueller, Executive Chair at Form3 Group Ltd.
"The UK's global financial footprint means that it is well positioned to become the world's most advanced payment system for the next decade. By championing a collaborative model, the Bank of England is laying the groundwork for a future-proof payments ecosystem. Balancing regulatory integrity with market-driven innovation will be key in unlocking the full potential of digital and programmable money.”
— Gilbert Verdian, Chief Executive, Officer Quant
The strategic implications and key considerations
As the UK moves into this bold new chapter of payments infrastructure reform, each stakeholder group, from banks to fintech and PSPs, will need to assess the implications of the new model and prepare to engage with the opportunities and responsibilities that lie ahead.
Banks and payment service providers
Strategic alignment. Banks must align their infrastructure roadmaps with the forthcoming Payments Forward Plan and anticipate the transition from legacy systems to next-generation architecture.
Collaboration readiness. With public-private co-design at the core, banks will need to invest in capabilities that allow them to contribute meaningfully to industry governance, design decisions and delivery execution.
Risk and resilience. Ensuring continuity and operational resilience during the migration phase will be critical, particularly for systemically important institutions.
Innovation integration. Banks must accelerate adoption of open banking, digital ID and smart data capabilities to remain competitive in an increasingly open ecosystem.
Fintechs
Voice in governance. For the first time, fintechs will have a more formal role in shaping national payments infrastructure via the Retail Payments Infrastructure Board. Active participation will be essential to influence design and promote competition.
Enabler of innovation. Fintechs are well placed to experiment with programmable payments, stablecoins and agentic AI. The new structure provides clearer entry points to innovate and integrate with core infrastructure.
Compliance and trust. As fintechs scale and connect to national rails, demonstrating strong compliance, trust and operational resilience will be key to long-term success.
Merchants
Cost and experience benefits. A more efficient infrastructure can reduce payment costs, improve settlement times and enhance the customer checkout experience — both online and in-store.
Engagement opportunity. Merchants now have a formal channel to feed into infrastructure design via the Vision Engagement Group and Retail Payments Infrastructure Board.
Futureproofing. Merchants should prepare for an expanded ecosystem that includes digital wallets, tokenized payments and contextual commerce, powered by AI and smart contracts.
"This is a pivotal moment for the UK payments landscape. A bold, collaborative model that recognizes the need for pace, innovation and resilience — grounded in shared accountability. The focus now lies in execution: designing infrastructure that is modular, scalable, resilient and truly fit for the future."
— Alla Gancz, Payments Vertical Leader, Thoughtworks
How Thoughtworks can help payments innovation
At Thoughtworks, we bring deep experience in delivering modern payments infrastructure globally. Our work in India and Australia offers three core lessons:
- Define a product roadmap anchored in use cases that matter to end users.
- Leverage open standards and ecosystems to unlock innovation and resilience.
- Embed agility into both technology and governance to accelerate progress and delivery.
As the UK embarks on this transformation, we see a unique opportunity to embed a delivery mindset from the outset, one that integrates engineering, design and innovation to build an intelligent, inclusive and future-ready payments platform.
Read more about our work with the New Payments Platform Australia.
Find out how we helped National Payments Corporation of India reimagine digital payments.
Final thoughts
The UK is entering a bold new chapter in retail payments. There’s a long journey ahead, but the direction is right and the vision is strong. Now comes the challenge and opportunity — to deliver with purpose, pace and precision.
This is a fundamental reset in how the UK designs, governs and delivers its payments infrastructure. It reflects the importance of innovation and the need for future-ready platforms that support new forms of money, embedded finance and a more intelligent, interoperable payments landscape.
This is a bold move in the right direction.
