2. Though they are a subsidiary of the FCA the PSR have their own board and managing director. The PSR were previously based in the same Canary Wharf building as the FCA, sitting a different floor. On 2 July 2018 the PSR announced via Twitter and Linkedin that they had moved over the weekend to 12 Endeavour Square, Stratford. The FCA have also moved there.
3. The PSR has a competition objective, in fact it is a statutory objective, to promote competition and innovation within the UK payments sector to benefit payment service users.
In their Annual Plan and Budget for 2017/18 the PSR identified 3 key competition and innovation areas for exploration:
- Consumer protection and education
- The use of data and payments
- Changing competition dynamics
On 20 March 2018 the PSR launched their Annual Plan and Budget for 2018/19 in which they stated they would continue to explore these 3 key areas. On 13 June 2018 the PSR launched a discussion paper about data in the payments industry. The deadline for providing views is 5pm on 3 September 2018.
4. The PSR is alive to GAFAs (Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple) and the possibility of other tech companies entering the payments market. More recently another couple of acronyms have popped up in the industry e.g. FAMGA (Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon) and FANG (Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, and Google).
5. The PSR is keen to engage. They began a series of regional stakeholder events in 2017. Their first Scottish event was held in Edinburgh on 7 July 2017. At this event the PSR made clear their intention to have further stakeholder engagement.
The PSR can be followed on twitter @ThePSR.
