Finance Showcase 2025

The event was attended by a wide range of stakeholders including the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR), Open Banking provider and event partner Truelayer, City of London Police, HM Treasury and a mix of retailers.

The event was a great opportunity to explore the ongoing PSR market reviews, developments with new payment methods, the changing payment landscape, and concluded in a networking hour.

Session 1: Card Fees: Latest Insights from Market Reviews

The first session featured a panel discussion on card fees, with insights from Anthony Pygram, Senior Manager at PSR, and Fiennes Davey, Group Head of Payments at Kingfisher. The discussion covered the findings of the cross-border interchange fees review and the proposed price cap, the ongoing market reviews of scheme and processing fees and the growing issue of commercial cards fees.

Retailers expressed concerns about the time it takes to deliver price cap interventions and the potential for schemes to introduce new fees whilst the market reviews are underway. Retailers advocated for a more holistic view of card fees to address them comprehensively. The PSR’s limited capacity means they must use an evidence-based approach to prioritise which fee to address next, which has the risk of creating opportunities for schemes to continue introducing new fees thus creating new problems. The PSR highlighted the role of good quality data to support their investigations and prioritisation.

The BRC is actively engaged in addressing issues related to cross-border interchange fees and the scheme and processing market reviews and will continue to support members in making the case for a market review of commercial cards. Find out more on the Finance Community Hub here.

Session 2: Open Banking Update: Progress and Key Changes Over the Past Year

Dan Moore, Head of Strategy and Intelligence at PSR, and Jack Wilson, VP Policy & Research at Truelayer, led the second session on Open Banking (OB). The panel discussed the potential of OB (now called Pay by Bank to drive adoption and make it more understandable for consumers) to compete with card payments and the steps that need to be taken to get there such as the importance of consumer protection and the need for a commercial model that incentivises adoption by consumers and merchants.

Other significant developments over the past year include the National Payments Vision's endorsement of OB as a potential driver of competition and the progress on Variable Recurring Payments (VRP). The session also addressed the challenges of changing consumer behaviour, particularly noting that while OB currently lacks the ‘card on file’ functionality, this feature is on its way.

Looking ahead, achieving online ubiquity is on the right path, but physical point-of-sale (POS) is a more distant milestone – recent PSR digital wallets research reinforces the view that gaining access to POS terminals and chips owned by Visa/Mastercard and Apple/Google is crucial to supporting this. Upgraded infrastructure that supports innovation and account-to-account (A2A) payments is also necessary, providing certainty to merchants to drive adoption.

Session 3: First-Party Fraud: Understanding the Issue and Exploring Solutions

The third session focused on first-party fraud, featuring insights from Grant Shipway, Senior Operational Risk Manager at River Island, Lara Xenoudakis, Detective Chief Inspector at City of London Police, and Jamie Mills, Detective Inspector at NFIB. This type of fraud, also known as customer fraud, friendly fraud, or refund fraud, involves customers exploiting return and refund processes and chargeback processes. The panel discussed the impact of first-party fraud on the retail sector, overcoming the societal acceptance of such behaviours, and the key challenges of tackling this type of fraud.

BRC has been actively addressing the issue of first-party fraud, which is becoming increasingly problematic, especially since the pandemic. To tackle the issue, the BRC and its members have developed a 7-point action plan and published a problem statement which aims to address the root causes of first-party fraud, reduce its ease of perpetration, and challenge the criminal elements involved.

The session emphasised the importance of data in understanding and escalating the threat to get the necessary recourses and attention, and the need for a coordinated approach to address the issue. City of London highlighted the development of a new reporting database to replace Action Fraud, the National Fraud and Cyber reporting service and the Online Safety Bill as two key opportunities to work collaboratively to tackle the problem.

Session 4: Shaping the Future: A Vision for National Payments

Roisin Edwards, Senior Policy Advisor for National Payments Vision (NPV) at HM Treasury, led the final session of the day. The discussion covered the key recommendations of the NPV including the lack of clarity in the current payment system and need for a clear, proportionate and cohesive regulatory framework, and the importance of maintaining momentum in driving forward key actions in the next 12 months.

The session also highlighted the role of Open Banking in creating a more diverse ecosystem of payment methods and the role of digital IDs in supporting new services and also tackling fraud.

On next steps, by the middle of the year the Bank of England, in its role on the NVP Delivery Commitee, will outline short and long-term enhancements to the payments infrastructure and their approach to these improvements – they want the sector to be innovative and recognise ensuring there is capacity for this innovation to take place is key. Looking further ahead, there will be continued management of the plan with the key goal being for both industry and regulators to have a better understanding of what is coming down the line.

The BRC has secured a place on the Vision Engagement Group, which will inform the work of the NPV Delivery Committee responsible for taking forward the key actions within the plan.