Building True Resilience in the UK Payments Ecosystem | Part 7 | Bottomline

Northey Point, in conversation with Bottomline, addressed the growing importance of operational resilience and bank connectivity in today’s payments landscape.

While these topics have always been critical in digital finance, the external threats facing banks and firms today make them more urgent than ever. The way organisations connect to their banks, whether directly or indirectly, and across how many providers , can make all the difference when it comes to resilience. Tools that support these connections are just as vital as the connections themselves. As Northey Point put it, “you can get to your bank, but if you can’t make the payment, we’re all in trouble.”

The UK has historically benefited from high levels of availability and performance in payment systems, however Northey Point cautioned against complacency as institutions need to plan for moments of crisis, whether internal or across the wider industry. That means understanding rerouting options, interoperability between schemes, and having the ability to switch urgent payments between systems like Faster Payments, CHAPS and RTGS when necessary. Papers such as the Bank of England’s CARA (CHAPS as a Retail Alternative) highlight how these contingencies might work in practice, even if the ideas remain at a high level.

Looking ahead, Northey Point also drew attention to the challenges of maintaining resilience for pull payments, such as direct debits, in times of disruption. Push payments are relatively straightforward, handling direct debits in crisis situations is more complex, however with upcoming arrival of variable recurring payments (VRPs), particularly in commercial use cases, could help ease this challenge by adding flexibility.

Ultimately, Northey Point’s message was clear: banks and firms must proactively consider what resilience looks like in a crisis, both in terms of their own processes and the wider payment systems they rely on to ensure the ability to reroute and maintain connectivity every single time is essential; not just for compliance, but to safeguard the smooth running of the UK’s payments ecosystem.