Credit, Collections & Insolvency News
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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Net lending via credit cards and personal loans is also set to end the year in negative territory, falling 0.7% on top of 2020’s 9.8% decline according to the latest EY ITEM Club for Financial Services Forecast. The lrnfingfigures equates to a £1.4bn fall in the stock of consumer credit, as households have made more repayments…
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The Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) publishes its regulatory framework for the renewal of the UK’s interbank payments infrastructure that allows people and businesses to make payments from one payment account to another. Earlier this year, the PSR consulted on reducing risks to competition and innovation once the New Payments Architecture (NPA) is operational. If these risks materialise, competition…
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The Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) has outlined its plans for the Confirmation of Payee (CoP) system. The plans will allow more banks and building societies to work together to ensure even greater number of customers are protected by the name-checking service. Confirmation of Payee (CoP) is designed to help stop fraud and accidently misdirected payments…
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Credit Connect has announced its annual Credit & Collections Technology company power list for 2021. The third edition of the power list is a round-up of the most prominent innovating companies within credit and collections technology. Credit Connect has identified the top 20 ‘Premier’ innovators highlighting the achievements and successes of the top-performing companies. The…
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Secure Trust Bank PLC (STB) has announced that it has agreed to acquire AppToPay, owner of a proprietary technology platform to support STB’s planned entry into the digital Buy Now Pay Later (digital BNPL) market. STB, through its V12 Retail Finance business, is already a provider of point-of-sale retail finance, with a network of more…
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Ecospend, a provider of Open Banking APIs, has announced the appointment of Sarah Lambert as Head of Solutions. Lambert will be working with the team to help Ecospend identify and deliver data-based solutions, powered by open banking technology, that meet the needs of more vulnerable customers. As a Sales and Affordability product specialist, Lambert will…
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