The UK has announced the abolition of the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR), as part of its efforts to cut red tape and drive economic growth.
The move follows complaints from payment services firms that they were having to engage with three different regulators, costing them time, money and resource.
The government has therefore proposed to consolidate the PSR, which looks after payment systems like Faster Payments and Mastercard, into the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
Will anything change?
This announcement may strike a bold tone but, as it stands, it isn’t really changing anything, other than moving the PSR into the FCA.
The industry has previously expressed a number of concerns around the PSR, so visually this comes across rather well.
What’s more, the consolidation of this regulator into the FCA – given the latter’s broader remit for financial services regulation – arguably makes sense.
However, the proof will be in the pudding as to whether this really results in any substantive changes to the types and the approach of the regulator.