Following last year's bungled and abandoned attempt to scrap cheques, the bank-run UK Payments Council is set to be stripped of its powers by the government.
With mobile money becoming increasingly important, the UK's Faster Payments Scheme has hired telecoms industry veteran Craig Tillotson as its first managing director.
An old-style scam that sees victims conned into handing over their bank cards and PINs to couriers is on the rise, netting British fraudsters £750,000 so far this year, the Payments Council is warning.
The Payments Council today (19 April 2012) publishes an independent review of its governance arrangements and performance over the past two years.
Britons sent two-thirds more money through Faster Payments in the last three months of 2011 than in the fourth quarter of 2010, as the much maligned service took root.
Fraud losses on UK debit and credit cards fell seven per cent in 2011 to £341 million, an 11-year low, according to figures from the UK Cards Association.
The UK Payments Council has commissioned VocaLink to build a central database that will allow bank customers to link their mobile phone number to their account for person-to-person mobile payments.
After forcing a humiliating climb-down on the abolition of cheques, UK politicians are now calling on the Payments Council to bring back the cheque guarantee scheme alongside proposals to tighten regulation of the bank-run body and interbank payments in general.
Following its bungled and abandoned attempt to scrap cheques, the UK Payments Council looks set to face new government-imposed regulations.
The Payments Council has today (9th November 2011) opened a public consultation on its performance and the way it is run, as part of a comprehensive review led by Payments Council Independent Director, Professor Martin Cave, to be published in the spring.
© Finextra Research 2013