The Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) are seeking views on the benefits and risks digital wallets bring to people and businesses.
With Apple Pay, Google Pay and PayPal being three of the most widely used digital wallets in the UK today, digital wallets have become an increasingly important point of contact between major technology companies and UK consumers.
As such, regulators are keen to better understand the impact on consumers and businesses created by the growing popularity of digital wallets, such as:
- the range of benefits that digital wallets offer to service users;
- if there are features that mean payments aren’t working as well as they could for consumers and/or businesses;
- their role in unlocking the possibilities of account-to-account payments and how they might affect competition between payment systems; and
- whether digital wallets could raise significant competition, consumer protection or market integrity issues, either now or in the future.
PSR is particularly interested in understanding how digital wallets influence consumers’ payment options at checkout. It hopes to better understand the implications of the growing role of digital wallets in payments and the implications for competition between payment systems, including PSR’s strategic goal of unlocking the potential of account-to-account payments.
The FCA’s regulatory remit gives it a particular interest in issues such as how digital wallets can affect competition in the provision of financial services and the operational resilience and systemic safety of the UK financial services industry.
This call for information it’s open until 5 pm on Friday, September 13.
Regulators are interested in hearing from stakeholders across the payments and financial services landscape, including digital wallet and technology providers, as well as users of their services and other parties interested in digital wallets.
Regulators will consider all comments received and update by Q1 2025.