New Manifesto identifies four strategic objectives and eight policy recommendations to strengthen the UK’s payments infrastructure, competitiveness, consumer protection and innovation.
The Payments Association has launched The Payments Manifesto 2027: A national strategy for trusted, competitive and innovative payments by 2030, setting out a shared agenda for industry, government and regulators to strengthen the UK’s payments ecosystem.
Payments underpin the UK economy, enabling commerce, supporting businesses and connecting consumers to essential services. However, the sector faces significant challenges, including ageing infrastructure, increasingly sophisticated fraud, barriers to financial inclusion and the rapid emergence of AI-driven commerce and new forms of digital money.
Our Manifesto sets out how these challenges can be addressed through coordinated policy action and industry collaboration, helping the UK remain a trusted, competitive and innovative global payments market.
Developed through engagement with our membership and reviewed by our Advisory Board, the Manifesto builds on the Government’s National Payments Vision and translates its ambitions into practical priorities for progress towards 2030.
Four objectives, eight policy recommendations
The Manifesto is organised around four interconnected objectives, each supported by two policy recommendations.
1. Growth, Competitiveness and Resilience
We call for the modernisation of UK payments infrastructure, with a focus on interoperability and resilience, alongside a more competitive environment for payments businesses to grow, scale and operate internationally.
2. Trust, Security and Consumer Protection
We advocate earlier fraud prevention through actionable intelligence sharing and accountability across the fraud chain. We also call for improved financial inclusion, capability and meaningful choice in how people pay.
3. AI, Data and Digital Infrastructure
As AI agents increasingly undertake transactions on behalf of consumers and businesses, clear rules are needed for secure and accountable agentic payments. We also want UK standards for agentic commerce to be internationally interoperable.
4. The Future of Money and Payments
We call for coherent, proportionate and internationally interoperable regulation for next-generation payments, including stablecoins and tokenised money, alongside greater interoperability between existing and emerging forms of regulated money.
From policy ambition to practical progress
The Manifesto is designed to support action, not simply identify challenges.
The Payments Association will work with its members, policymakers, regulators and industry stakeholders to convene expertise, develop evidence and support collaboration around the eight recommendations.
By establishing shared priorities and monitoring progress towards 2030, we aim to help translate policy ambition into meaningful improvements for businesses, consumers and the wider UK economy.
A shared agenda for the future of UK payments
The future of payments will depend on the industry’s ability to modernise infrastructure, protect consumers, harness emerging technologies and ensure that innovation benefits the wider economy.
The Payments Manifesto 2027 provides a framework for addressing these priorities together.
Click here to download The Payments Manifesto 2027 and explore the four objectives and eight policy recommendations in full.
