Roadmap for RTGS beyond 2024: industry co-creation

Co-creation approach

On 13 February 2023, the Bank issued a response to the consultation on the roadmap for the Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) service beyond 2024 (Roadmap), which summarised the industry feedback we received and set out our way forward for shaping a modern and flexible RTGS service to meet the evolving needs of the UK payments industry beyond 2024. Progressing the priority features set out in the Roadmap will be key to enabling us to offer the highest degree of resilience while facilitating innovation and competition in the fast-changing payments landscape.

A key theme from the consultation responses was that the payments industry was keen to work closely with the Bank to shape the detail of the proposals under the Roadmap to maximise the benefits. As a result, we are launching industry co-creation by establishing forums to enable current and prospective users of RTGS and other relevant stakeholders to input into high-level design features and to help inform business-case analysis.

Close collaboration between the Bank and the industry will be essential in shaping and delivering the Roadmap features to ensure value for money. The industry co-creation forums will help support and advise the Bank on business cases, speed and sequencing of priority features in the Roadmap.

How we will engage

• We will use a cross-feature strategic roadmap delivery forum to provide strategic advice. Considering the analysis completed by thematic groups and the developments in the payments landscape, the forum will help with views on the demand and timelines for implementing features, and the business cases for priority features from a strategic perspective.
• We will form three thematic engagement groups on resilient channels features, extended RTGS operating hours and synchronisation.
  • Resilient channels – includes non-payment APIs, settlement contingency, and an alternative network. These features share the common theme of removing a single point of failure from the payments ecosystem while creating new opportunities for innovation in networking infrastructure.
  • Extended RTGS operating hours – includes assessing business cases and the demand for extending operating hours to different end states.
  • Synchronisation – includes assessing business cases for providing synchronised settlement and exploring further policy and design questions relating to the practical implementation of synchronisation functionality in RTGS.
• We will also use other methods (see Figure 2), for example, bilateral discussion, surveys and issuing discussion and/or consultation papers.

Figures 1, 2 and Table A provide further information about co-creation forums.

The co-creation forums will play an advisory role, with final decisions on implementing the features in the Roadmap taken by the Bank. The Bank will consider the views of the co-creation forums and other industry input alongside public policy considerations and other prioritisation factors when taking decisions on delivering features as part of the Roadmap.

Industry co-creation will also help to outline future product functionality and when new features will be released.

The co-creation process for the current prioritised features is set to commence in 2023 Q2 until Spring 2024.

We will take stock of the analysis completed and review our approach (including considering whether any new forums would be required) as we move towards delivering features.

Figure 1: Overview of co-creation forums

Figure 2: Co-creation group approach

Co-creation principles

Principles to obtain effective industry engagement:

• Focused: we will form carefully targeted working groups to tackle a set of specific priority questions.
• Representative: we will seek to ensure diverse representation of a range of current and potential future users of RTGS.
• Transparent: we will communicate regularly with a wide group of industry stakeholders (including those who may not directly participate in the co-creation groups). We will invite (but not require) wider input on a ‘little and often’ basis.
• Accountable: we will publish the summary of the analysis and advice developed as part of co-creation engagement groups. We will invite wider industry scrutiny and views before we take decisions on new features.

What would be expected from attending thematic engagement groups?

Call for interest for the thematic engagement groups

The Bank would like nominations from those who will actively participate in discussions to provide information and inputs from their organisation’s perspectives and wider industry expertise. We would be grateful for nominations from those who have, depending on the feature, technical and operational understanding to input into design and policy considerations and strategic knowledge to advise on business cases.

We are initially expecting to hold around five discussions per feature specific group, one approximately every 4–6 weeks. We will also use email correspondence for further comments/feedback. We will aim to have a diverse group of organisations and expect maximum of 15–20 members per feature group. To note, we will consciously seek to flexibly manage the timing or meetings around the period when Transition State 2.1 is going live.

Representation will be based on one representative per organisation and approved at the discretion of the Bank. There will also be other methods to contribute to the co-creation process, eg via bilateral meetings, surveys and future consultations.

Further information on timings and full agendas, will be provided to the approved group members in due course.

Overview of groups