Minutes of the Standards Advisory Panel - December 2024

Minutes

Date of meeting: 11 December 2024

Item 1: Welcome and actions

The Chair welcomed members and provided an overview of the agenda for the meeting. The Chair informed the panel that Mike Walters had shared their intention to step down from SAP. The Chair expressed their thanks for all of Mike’s hard work, and particularly his leadership on the development of a UK API framework.

The Secretariat shared completed actions in action log, with the majority being discussed in the latter items.

The Secretariat also shared the forward plan for 2025, with some vacancies being held, particularly in later meetings, to account for future topics that arise from meetings.

ACTION: The Panel to respond to skills matrix for prospective new members by 17 December 2024.

The Chair agreed to having a NPV discussion as a standing agenda item for 2025.

ACTION: Secretariat to add NPV as a standing agenda item.

Item 2: National Payments Vision (NPV)

The Bank presented a summary of the NPV announcement and the initial public reactions from key institutions, including the Bank and Pay.UK. Pay.UK emphasised that there have been no major changes yet, with an ongoing direction towards ISO 20022, but workshops are taking place over the coming months to shape future working.

The Chair asked the Panel for their reaction to the NPV announcement from a standards perspective, and discussed with the Panel the impact that it may have on the industry’s standards strategy. The Panel discussed regulatory congestion and the need to prioritise value-generating work. There was also a wider discussion about the importance of translating the discussion emanating from the announcement into concrete actions.

On standards-specific issues, the Panel agreed that digital identity was a key area where the industry were looking for a clearer direction from authorities and its potential applicability to tackle fraud. The Panel also felt this was a great opportunity to have a reset in payment standards, in particular in relation to developments in open banking. However, it was noted that it was important to ensure the funding principles were defined for open banking developments.

ACTION: Secretariat to add a discussion to digital identity on the NPV item for the next meeting.

Item 3: API next steps

Open Banking presented on this item, noting that this topic had been discussed recently in SEF. They noted that a blog summarising the recommendations of the SAP subgroup on API standards had been published on the UK Finance website and there could be scope in reconvening a workstream looking at implementing the recommendations on API standards.

The Bank noted the G20’s publication of the APEX report on API standards in cross-border payments. It was noted that there was a need for greater clarity going forward on the recommendations in the report to ensure there was tangible action towards enhancing cross-border payments.

A member responded that the report was a more strategic document than the A1 report, so lacked operational expertise. It will look to implement recommendations in 2025 and produce a roadmap on this.

ACTION: BoE to schedule call between SAP API expert(s) and the Chair of the APEX group, on next steps from the report.

A member also asked about who has ownership on API standards strategy in the UK. The Bank will input this into the NPV response, but the Panel’s view was that clarity on overall ownership was needed to ensure deliverables are achieved.

ACTION: BoE and Pay.UK to discuss the ownership of API harmonisation work.

Item 4: Cash management

This item has been moved to the next meeting.

Item 5: SAP membership

SAP membership was discussed under item 1.

Item 5: Any other business

The Panel agreed on the future dates of SAP.

Attendees

Members:

Karen Braithwaite, Chair (Barclays)
Domenico Scaffidi, DS Payments
Fiona Hamilton, Open Banking
Grant Osborn, Pay.UK
Mark Streather, Bank of England
Mike Walters, Form3
Rejani Kumar, Payment Systems Regulator
Robert White, PagoNxt
Toby Young, Ebury

Other attendees:

Bank of England Secretariat

Apologies:

Jo Oxley, Government Banking Service
Naresh Aggarwal, Association of Corporate Treasurers