The new service will be materially stronger and more resilient in an increasingly complex and sophisticated environment. It will be flexible to protect against the threats we understand today and the ones we will need to adapt to in the future. RTGS Renewal will promote greater access to payment systems. We have already made policy changes to allow non-bank payment service providers direct access to payment systems and RTGS Renewal will reduce 3  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches  3  some of the barriers that we know exist today. It will speed up on-boarding times to the system and reduce the operational overheads of membership. These changes will further accelerate the number and range of firms that can gain direct access to payment systems. Since 2018 five non-bank payment service providers have opened accounts in RTGS and around twenty further firms are exploring the possibility of joining. These firms can benefit from faster transaction times and reduced individual transaction costs. Consequently, the Bank hopes to encourage a greater diversity of players in the payments market, thereby encouraging innovation and competition through development of new business models and ultimately creating a more diverse payments landscape. This will increase efficiency and reduce concentration risk thus supporting financial stability. RTGS Renewal will also promote resilience and efficiency through greater interoperability across payment systems. An important step to achieving this is the introduction of a new payment messaging standard for UK payments: ISO20022, the emerging global standard for payments messaging.

It means we are better able to reflect the requirements of the firms that use the services we provide and ultimately the people of the UK. And we can balance the potentially competing needs of different stakeholders on an informed basis rather than relying only on the views of longstanding contacts. A key piece of engagement took place in summer 2018 when we ran a joint consultation10 with Pay.UK and the Payments Systems Regulator on the implementation of ISO 20022. Over 70 organisations replied and their responses11 helped refine our approach, for example on Legal Entity Identifiers (LEIs). Responses showed widespread support for making LEIs mandatory for transactions between financial institutions in CHAPS. Many respondents also saw the benefits of mandating LEIs for a wider range of payments but flagged the need for wider adoption of LEIs before these benefits could be fully reaped. The Bank has committed to working with key stakeholders including HM Government and the Global LEI Foundation (GLEIF), as well as providing further education about the wider economic value of the LEI. This will lay the foundations to make LEIs mandatory for a much wider set of CHAPS payments in the future. We are also seeking industry views on whether the renewed RTGS service could facilitate synchronised settlement and importantly what the demand might be. Synchronisation, or atomic settlement, is the concept that two or more transactions (payments or movements of assets) are linked in such a way as to ensure that each transaction completes if, and only if, they complete together.