Bank of England's Carney says to open up payment system to banks' competitors

[LONDON] Bank of England Governor Mark Carney said the central bank planned to open up Britain's payments system to businesses that wanted to compete with banks, as part of efforts to boost the financial technology sector.

"The Bank intends to extend direct access to RTGS (real-time gross settlement system) beyond the current set of firms, allowing a range of non-bank PSPs (payments service providers) to compete on a level playing field with banks," Carney said in a speech published on Friday.

Carney said more than 1,000 non-bank payments providers currently served customers, but that they had to rely on just four banks for access to RTGS high-speed payments in Britain.

REUTERS