Background
In November 1998 the UK Treasury commissioned a review (The Cruickshank Report) of competition within the UK banking sector, which reported in March 2000. Among its recommendations was primary legislation to establish an independent payment systems commission (PayCom) in place of existing, privately controlled, interbank arrangements. The following day, the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, announced legislation would be introduced, if necessary, to open payment systems to increased competition. Initially the banking industry was consulted by government on further steps and progress in payments services monitored by the Competition Commission and the Office of Fair Trading (OFT).
By May 2003, while the OFT was able to report modest improvements, such as changes to BACS and the governance of APACS, some competition concerns remained and, in December 2003, the Treasury announced the OFT would take on: "an enhanced role in relation to payment systems, for a period of four years" to resolve outstanding competition problems "in advance of any legislation"; essentially self-regulation. In March 2004 the OFT announced the formation of a joint government-industry body, the Payments Systems Task Force, under its chairmanship .
Read more about this topic: Faster Payments Service
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