The UK Government is to explore the use of open banking driven digital payments for public services.
In a blog post, Amanda Dahl, the deputy director of Government Digital Services, outlined the plans as part of a wider programme of deliverig new functionality for the payment of Government services.
This includes extending the use of GOV.UK Pay - which already offers Apple Pay and Google Pay for central government digital services - to local authority services for people who are paying for government services on the go, like paying for Clean Air Zone charges.
On the move to a common cross-government open banking platform, she says: "Later this year we’ll also be investigating how GOV.UK Pay might offer open banking, which means that people will have the option to pay for services conveniently using their own banking app."
The Government's revenue and customs agency HMRC has been in the vanguard of the open banking revolution, By January of this year collecting £123 million in Self-Assessment payments from more than 94,000 taxpayers via the HMRC app since its launch in February 2022.