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Small businesses need a choice over the future of payments

Future of payments
Image credit: Jacob Lund / Shutterstock

Tax cuts, R&D and pension reform were hotly anticipated by the UK tech sector in the Autumn Statement. For the fintech and payments space, the focus was also on the much-awaited publication of the Future of Payments Review. Led by Joe Garner, the report explored the ‘good news’ and the ‘trouble brewing’ for UK payments and set the base for a National Payments Vision next year.

However, the report did not provide any realistic answers to how (or when) UK small businesses can begin to benefit from innovation.

Despite concluding that UK payments are, to use the author’s own words, in a “good place”, one of the key findings of the report is that the dependency on cards, and the associated costs, has led to dissatisfaction from merchants who long for alternatives. The report points to open banking and the work being developed by the Joint Regulatory Oversight Committee (JROC) as the silver bullet for merchant grievances....