Bank of England, FCA, PRA and PSR conduct 2024 review of Memorandum of Understanding for payment systems in the UK

The Bank of England (Bank), the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA), and the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) (the Authorities) have a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) which sets out the high-level framework that we use to cooperate with one another in relation to payment systems in the UK. The Financial Services (Banking Reform) Act 2013 requires the Authorities to review the MoU annually.

Senior representatives from the Bank, FCA, PRA and PSR have considered whether cooperation between the Authorities is working well. Over the past year, we have taken steps to improve the sharing of expertise and data between our institutions. We recognise that there is scope for further improvement in our cooperation and we have committed to revise the MoU by Q2 of 2025 in line with the Government’s National Payments Vision (NPV).

The NPV was published in November 2024. Alongside this, the Government also made recommendations regarding UK payments through a joint remit letter to the FCA and PSR.  All four Authorities recognise the importance of our continued cooperation and collaboration, particularly at this time of innovation and change in the payments sector.

Venn diagram MOU between PSR, FCA and BoE

We also have a MoU with the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) setting out the working arrangements between us, and a MoU with the Lending Standards Board (LSB) primarily in regard to work on Authorised Push Payment fraud.