In line with this, today I would like to share how we at the Bank of England are looking to the future to ensure our systemically important payment systems are robust and resilient, their underlying infrastructure is best in class, and our regulatory toolkit remains fit for purpose and future-proof. NPSO: A mandate to be greater than the sum of its parts Payment systems, by their very nature, bring together participants that would otherwise transact bilaterally. Crucially, by doing so, they promote increased efficiency and resiliency that is enjoyed by all. They manage  2  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  2  risks, eliminate intermediate arrangements and related costs at the back-end of the payments value chain, and provide functionality that enables innovation to proliferate at the front-end. As described in our Annual 1  Report this year , financial market infrastructure, including payment systems, exist to reduce the risks and costs involved when participants make payments. And this leads me to the NPSO and its creation. The PSF, established by the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) in March 2015, proposed the consolidation of the UK retail interbank payment system operators: Bacs 2  and Faster Payments, as well as the Cheque and Credit Clearing Company . The Bank was engaged closely with the work of the Forum and was supportive of this change as we could see the potential for the consolidated scheme to be greater than the sum of its constituent parts.
Our priority throughout this transition has been to ensure that it has been and continues to be managed in a way that promotes the robustness and resilience of the payment systems, and of wider financial stability. And a considerable amount of work was undertaken to achieve this - by the retail scheme operators, their participants and the NPSO. What we now expect to see: Tangible progress has been made, and this should rightly be recognised. But, as with any journey, we cannot lose sight of the work that lies ahead to deliver these benefits from consolidation. The NPSO’s primary focus should be on completing integration of the payment systems and embedding robustness and resilience within all of its activities, including the New Payments Architecture (NPA) programme. There is still much to do to complete the integration of these systems, from an organisational perspective, but also at the system level; completion of which will allow the NPSO to begin realising the ultimate goal of strategic leadership and higher standards of management and control. For this to succeed, the NPSO’s strategy will need to be realistic and consistent with its objectives and capabilities. It will also need to include an appropriate focus on reviewing and enhancing the activities the NPSO has inherited, to manage its own risk profile, its outsourced infrastructure partner, and risks to the wider system emanating from participants.