The UK government has begun its search for an IT supplier to support its plan to build open banking capabilities into its payment platform.
The Government Digital Service (GDS) is looking for a tech supplier to start work in July this year, in a three-year contract worth £49m.
The GDS, which is part of the Cabinet Office, said it wants a payment service provider “to underpin the Gov.uk Pay platform, specifically for processing credit and debit card payments and pay by bank (open banking) payments”.
Its search includes inviting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to bid for the multimillion-pound contract. Open banking specialisation is found in the fintech sector, which includes a large number of startup SMEs.
The Gov.uk Pay platform enables central government, local authorities, police forces and the NHS to take payments for their services digitally, reducing financial processes and the administrative burden.
According to the government, Gov.uk Pay processed over 94 million transactions since its launch in September 2016, worth about £6bn.
“Gov.uk Pay is a common tool that is built once and used many times by more than 1,000 different public sector services, saving the public sector time, money and reducing duplication of effort,” the government said.
It also offers a consistent, trusted and accessible user experience, making it quick and easy for citizens to pay for public sector services. Pay has achieved significant realised benefits, saving the public sector money, and the contract includes the option for two year-long extensions.
Through application programming interfaces (APIs), open banking enables banking details to be shared by consumers with third-party apps and websites if permission is granted.
In 2018, UK banks were required to implement the Competition and Markets Authority open banking regulations, which led to the development of APIs in banking to give consumers more control over their accounts.
The end goal was to increase competition in a sector dominated by big financial services companies. Customer banking data is shared by the industry through APIs, with customer permission, enabling businesses to offer tailored products.
According to recent figures from Open Banking Limited (OBL), the implementation authority for open banking, there are now about 11.7 million active users of open banking-enabled products in the UK, and over 22.1 million open banking payments are made monthly.
The OBL said there has been a total of 400 million successful open banking payments made since 2018, and added that there is an open banking ecosystem in the UK worth £4bn to the economy.
In January, Marion King, chair and trustee at the OBL, said: “As we reflect on the last seven years, we should be collectively proud of the financial innovation and the benefits open banking delivers to consumers and businesses, as well as the wider economy. We’re at a pivotal stage in the evolution of open banking, with legislation and regulation coming forward that will not only put it on a commercially sustainable footing fit for the long term, but also move us towards open finance and other smart data schemes.”