Modernising UK’s payment infrastructure could boost economy by £3.27bn, key report says
Modernising the country’s payment infrastructure could boost the UK economy by almost $3.8bn (£3.3bn), a report issued today has claimed.
An in-depth study by Global Data, the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) and ACI Worldwide, shows the UK’s GDP would hugely benefit if it upgraded its ageing payments infrastructure and increased real-time payments adoption.
The UK lags behind much of the developing world in real-time payments growth, the report said.
CEBR said the “untapped potential” of real-time payments would be a huge uplift to the economy.
“Real-time payments improve liquidity in the financial system and therefore act as a catalyst for economic growth,” Owen Good, head of economic advisory at CEBR, said.
The country’s payments industry last year proposed a ‘New Payments Architecture’ programme, which is due to introduce sweeping changes in the next few years.