The NPA and future of instant payments

The NPA and future of instant payments

Join Andrew Hewitt, Director of Payment and Data Solutions at FIS and Anjana Haines, Editorial Director at The Payments Association as they discuss the New Payments Architecture (NPA) and specifically instant payments, the future potential and risks, as well as Andrew’s own learnings from early account-to-account initiatives.

The NPA and future of instant paymentsGiven that there is less to say about the New Payment Architecture (NPA) while we wait for the white smoke of vendor selection, Andrew’s and Anjana’s discussion naturally expands beyond the NPA to instant payments and Account to Account payments – they discuss:
  • Instant Payments: A new flavour of Faster Payments providing instant “yes” / “no” payment certainty.
  • Achieving Account to Account (A2A) ubiquity by developing a brand or mark of recognition, service level and gaining end user trust.
  • Consumer protection measures within Faster Payments for certain types of payments (maybe not a “friends and family” payment of £10 for a coffee but perhaps for a “social medial market place” payment for £200 of car parts.
  • The case for digitised receipts to “travel” with the payment.
  • The need for a sensible A2A commercial model (perhaps similar to the Debit Card).
  • A2A payments needing to be better than what we already have today – including the “right amount” of friction.
  • Andrew shares some learnings from Zapp and asks was Zapp ahead of its time? Perhaps the development of Open Banking over the past few years has broken the “chicken and egg” problem that Zapp faced in respect of banks and merchant adoption?
  • The discussion finishes with a look into the NPA crystal ball and Andrew’s NPA future includes:
    • Non-Sweeping Variable Recurring Payments (VRPs) enabled with a ubiquity of offering and a recognisable brand rather than tactical ones from individual organisations.
    • A hope that the NPA will be delivered!
    • The need for a vision for Bacs under the NPA suggesting that “Bacs is a bigger problem child” than Faster Payments”.
    • Developing a clear understanding of how CBDC’s (ePound / Britcoin) will relate to payments and the NPA. 
    • A view that Direct Debits and VRPs will co-exist (Direct Debit 3.0?)
    • The need to learn from the cheque debacle of 2011, especially the need for viable alternatives to be available.

Mike Chambers and the NPA

As a former CEO of all of the UK’s systemically important payment systems, an integral part of the industry initiative which led to the NPA vision and also having acted as an advisor to a NPA procurement response, Mike’s experience provides unrivalled exposure across the full supply / demand spectrum on this vital infrastructure programme.

For an independent and informed insight into the UK’s New Payments Architecture visit: Mike Chambers and the NPA.

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