Credit, Collections & Insolvency News
The Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) confirmed and published a new rule that paves the way for more banks and building societies to adopt Confirmation of Payee (CoP), the bank account name checking service. Every year thousands of individuals and businesses fall victim to Authorised Push Payment (APP) scams – where they are tricked into sending…
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Data collected by Barclaycard reveals that growth in spending on debit and credit cards slowed in January as Plan B restrictions kept consumers at home. The analysis showed that spending increased by 7.4% in January compared with pre-pandemic levels in January 2020, the lowest level of growth since April 2021. Fuel spending rose by 6.7%,…
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HM Treasury has announced that they have started the search for the next Chair of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). While the search for Charles Randell’s permanent successor concludes, Richard Lloyd OBE will act as Interim Chair of the FCA from 1st June 2022. Aidene Walsh will act as interim chair of the Payments Systems…
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The Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) has published its initial remedies consultation for its card-acquiring market review. Every time somebody makes a card payment, for example, when buying their weekly groceries, the merchant uses card-acquiring services to accept the payment. These services are critical to the UK economy because they enable consumers and businesses to use their…
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New data from Barclaycard, which sees nearly half of the nation’s credit and debit card transactions, reveals that 91.1% of all eligible card transactions in 2021 were made contactlessly, with the total value of contactless payments made increasing by 40.2%, year-on-year. The data also shows that shoppers increasingly opted for ‘touch and go’ at the…
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Retail debit card spending soared 27% in the first two weeks of January compared to 2020, months before the pandemic hit, according to latest data from Lloyds Bank. The research found that 42% more was spent at restaurants and bars, whilst high-street stores, such as clothing outlets (34%), electrical goods stores (27%) and department stores…
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The Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) has announced that it has imposed fines against Mastercard, allpay, Advanced Payment Solutions (APS), Prepaid Financial Services (PFS) and Sulion after concluding that the five parties infringed competition law by agreeing not to compete or poach each other’s customers in the prepaid cards market in the UK. The pre-paid cards…
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The PSR has published its latest access and governance report, showing trends and developments in interbank payment systems over 2019 and 2020. The report details how new participants have been able to join payment systems (access) and notes developments in how the payment systems have been run and operated (governance). This shows that interbank payment…
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Consumer card spending increased 12.2 per cent in December compared to the same period in 2019, as Brits finished their final preparations for Christmas. However, the impact of restrictions and fears over the Omicron variant began to take effect across the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors. Data from Barclaycard, which sees nearly half of the…
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UK Finance has warned that retailers with an online presence need to ensure they fully support Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) by 14th March 2022 or risk customer purchases being declined. SCA is a new set of rules from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to help protect customers from fraud when they are shopping online. With…
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Payments specialist Ecospend has announced that it has initiated £2.4 billion worth of open banking transactions through its ‘pay by bank’ services across its client portfolio. Ecospend’s open banking technology allows customers to bypass manual data input when carrying out online payments. As a result, customers can make instant payments directly from their bank account,…
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More than half (55%) of consumers believe that the increased contactless limit could encourage people to spend more money this festive season. NerdWallet’s Consumer Borrowing Index, a nationally representative study of 5,000 UK adults, has revealed two in ten admitted to spending with less thought since the limit rose to £100 from £45 on 15…
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UK Finance has published its latest Card Spending Update for September 2021 which showed that outstanding balances on credit card accounts have contracted by 4.5 per cent over the twelve months to September, as a result of repayments outstripping new borrowing in the year. The latest data indicated that there were 1.9 billion debit card…
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