The FMI Broadcast Session #2

The Bank of England’s RTGS CHAPS Renewal Programme

Wednesday 25th May 2022

Real-time Gross Settlement (RTGS) systems are the backbone of the repayment system. As the FMI is where key payments settle, the efficient and safe function of an RTGS system is critical in ensuring a stable economy.

As the payment landscape evolves, so too should the RTGS system. Today, the payments ecosystem is changing more rapidly than ever before as new technologies and flexible and affordable computing services emerge, driving demand for better retail and wholesale financial services. It is clear that faster, cheaper, more transparent and inclusive payments are beneficial to the public, and RTGS systems must evolve to cope with new demands as new players enter the market and users look for new and better ways to make payments.

For session #2 of The FMI Broadcast, John Jackson and James Southgate from The Bank of England joined FNA to offer an exclusive insight into the bank’s ambitious RTGS renewal programme, exploring the RTGS of the future.

The session covered:

- The factors leading to the CHAPS renewal programme
- The efficiency of cross-border payments
- The Bank of England’s vision for the future system, looking beyond 2024
- The future of the SWIFT messaging system,
- Distributed Ledger Technology and DLT-based FMIs
- The future of CHAPS and its tiered access scheme
- The most anticipated feature of the new CHAPS system
- The renewal programme’s impact on consumers and merchants

Watch the Recording

Session #2 Guests

John Jackson

Policy and Product Lead, RTGS Renewal Programme, Bank of England

John Jackson is the Policy and Product Lead for the Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) Renewal programme, working in the Bank of England’s Banking, Payments and Innovation Directorate.

During his 20+ years at the Bank, John has worked in the Markets, Financial Stability and Prudential Policy areas. He has also spent a year on secondment at the New York Fed, working in their Financial Institutions Supervision Group.

John joined the RTGS Renewal programme in December 2015 as the Business Lead. He played a key role in developing the Blueprint for renewing the UK’s RTGS service and is responsible for Policy and Product development on the future shape of RTGS. In 2020, John represented the Bank on the CPMI Cross-Border Payments Task Force.

James Southgate

Senior Manager, RTGS Renewal Programme, Bank of England

James Southgate is a Senior Manager on the Bank of England’s Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) renewal programme. His responsibilities include implementing ISO 20022 messaging in the RTGS system and the UK’s high-value payment system, CHAPS. They also include designing improvements to the RTGS Liquidity Savings Mechanism.

He has worked closely with Pay.UK, the operator of the UK’s Faster Payments Service, to design a harmonised pacs.008 ‘Common Credit Message’ (CCM) for use across both CHAPS and Pay.UK’s New Payment Architecture.

James joined the Bank of England in 2003 and has worked in a variety of payments-related roles, including government retail banking, sterling and foreign exchange operations, and payment systems supervision. He has co-written Quarterly Bulletin articles on the role of local currencies and on digital currencies/ distributed ledger technology.