UK’s New Payment System Operator appoints board
The UK’s new payment system operator, which has been established “to develop the capability and capacity of the U.K.’s retail payment systems,” has appointed its first five board members, including:
- Anna Bradley, chair, Rail Safety and Standards Board
- Becky Clements, head of industry engagement and payment change at Metro Bank
- Russell Saunders, managing director, global payments at Lloyds Banking Group
- Robert Stansbury, previously, independent chair of the Payment System Operator Delivery Group
- Peter Wyman, chairman, Care Quality Commission
The board will be chaired by Melanie Johnson, who took up the position of independent chair of the new payment system operator on Sept. 1, with Paul Horlock taking up the post of CEO on Oct. 16.
| Meet the CEO
Paul Horlock has worked in the banking sector for more 15 years. Prior to his appointment at the NPSO, he joined Nationwide Building Society in 2010, with responsibility for a range of payments services for the society’s 15 million members. Horlock has driven changes such as contactless cards, Paym, Apple Pay, Android Pay and Samsung Pay. He represented Nationwide on the boards of VocaLink and Payments UK. He led the setup of the Open Banking Implementation Entity and chairs the Design Hub at the Payments Strategy Forum. Previously, Horlock spent eight years with Barclays as head of global payments processing. |
The appointment of these board members follows the creation of the corporate entity for the new payment system operator. NPSO Limited was incorporated on July 18, 2017. Four more board members will be appointed “in the coming months.”
The NPSO will consolidate the Bacs Payment Schemes Limited, Faster Payments Scheme Limited and the Image Clearing System, which will replace the paper processing system for checks currently managed by the Cheque and Credit Clearing Company.
These retail payment systems, which process more than £6.4 trillion of payments every year between them, will be joined by UK Payments Administration. Taking an over-arching view of the retail payments sector will enable the NPSO “to deliver greater efficiency, more innovation and fair and equal access to payments and the infrastructure that facilitates them.”
As previously reported, the proposal for the NPSO was created by the Payment System Operator Delivery Group, an independently chaired body set up by the Payment Systems Regulator and the Bank of England.
