cheques Archives - Page 2 of 2

UK payments system self-regulation under scrutiny

Last month, the UK government published a consultation paper on “Opening up UK payments”. According to the paper, “the self-regulation of financial services…has been discredited.” Say what? The world over, payments systems have been almost entirely self-regulated, so this is a big call. The evidence cited in the paper for this includes the LIBOR-rate fixing scandal and the failed attempt to eliminate UK cheque clearing. And of course, there is enduring rancor over the public bailout of UK banks during the global financial crisis.

The year ahead

Many of us are returning from the holiday break newly resolved on self-improvement – give up this, lose that, do better at the other thing. APCA too is resolved on self-improvement. Back in August 2011, we gave a public commitment to reform APCA’s own governance arrangements so as to make it a fit vehicle for more inclusive, stronger self-governance of the payments system. This is currently a hot topic for the Reserve Bank, and has been one for APCA for quite some time as well. So, next month, in February, we hope to be talking about a new model for how APCA works. This has to fit in with the views and needs of many different people and organisations, not least the public policymakers, so we know it probably won’t be a short conversation. But we hope it will be a successful one.

A tale of two countries

In Sydney in early June, we launched our consultation on the future of cheques. Our proposition is simple: based on long-term trends, cheques are steadily disappearing from the Australian community. That means problems down the track for those who rely on them, as they increasingly find their payment counterparties don't want to use or accept a cheque, even if they do. This consultation is not about cheque clearing at all: it's about making sure people have what they need. In the same week, on the other side of the world, the House of Lords in London began an acrimonious debate on the same issue: the future of cheques in the UK. The UK Payments Council has had closure of the paper clearing system on the agenda for several years, but they have not been able to win community support for the need to change.

Context is everything

I recently had the rare and valuable chance to take a deep dive into someone else's payments pool. Such comparisons are always refreshing, not to mention instructive. The Canadian Government has appointed a Task Force to review the Canadian payments system, and the Task Force has embarked on a series of intensive workshops with senior people from across payments – financial institutions, schemes, corporate and government users, merchants, consumer groups and others. They kindly invited me to participate in a 3-day workshop that ranged widely over the future payments landscape as they are seeing it in Canada. This was, I have to say, an impressive effort.