Upgrading the United Kingdom’s aging payments network and increasing real-time payments adoption are expected to boost the UK economy by around $3.8 billion by 2026, based on the results from a study by Global Data, ACI Worldwide, and the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr).
The United Kingdom was a global leader when it introduced its Faster Payments service over ten years ago but it seems to be lagging behind the likes of Brazil and India, as highlighted by ACI. This New Payments Architecture program, led by Pay.UK, will introduce widespread changes to the nation’s payments network in the next five years, delivering real-time account-to-account payments.
Based on the Cebr, the untapped potential of real-time payments in the United Kingdom is huge – the theoretical impact of all the payments being real-time might boost the economy by nearly $98 billion in 2026, or 2.7% annually.
Nevertheless, based on 2026 real-time adoption rates, with growth to 12.3% of all payments, real-time payments are projected to unlock $3.8 billion of extra-economic output – around 0.11% of formal GDP.
That is considerably less than Brazil and India which are projected to add $37.6 billion (2.08%) and $45.9 billion (1.12%) of extra GDP respectively, made possible by strong real-time payments growth – by 2026.
Buy Bitcoin NowThe head of real-time payments, ACI Worldwide, Craig Ramsey, stated:
“If the UK is to truly capitalize on the potential economic benefits of real-time payments over the coming years, then it must address the urgent need to modernize its aging payments infrastructure and embrace the New Payments Architecture with open arms.
“The onus is on government and industry to work together to increase adoption, otherwise, despite the head start by the Faster Payment system, the UK risks falling even further behind the rest of the world.”
