Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for the Home Department, on the potential merits of building in safeguards against fraud in the development of account-to-account payment systems.

The Government takes the issue of fraud very seriously and is dedicated to protecting the public from this appalling crime.

In the National Payments Vision, the Government set out its ambitions for a trusted, world-leading payments ecosystem delivered on next-generation technology, where consumers and businesses have a choice of payment methods to meet their needs. As part of this, the Government set out its ambition for account-to-account payments to be developed as a ubiquitous payment method.

In November, the Payments Vision Delivery Committee published its strategy to guide the development of the future retail payments infrastructure. This includes setting as a strategic outcome that consumers and businesses can trust that their payments are protected from fraud and wider financial crime.

To achieve this and 'design out' financial crime, the future infrastructure must enable: advanced prevention, detection and resolution capabilities; robust authentication mechanisms; appropriate protection across payment methods; and secure and efficient data access and sharing.

The Retail Payments Infrastructure Board, chaired by the Bank of England and with representation from across the payments ecosystem, is working to translate this strategy into the design of the future infrastructure, in line with the Government’s vision.