Bank of England
Keeping money moving with a world-leading payments service
The Bank of England’s payments and settlements infrastructure – its Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) service – is a significant part of the UK’s financial infrastructure and underpins financial stability.
The Bank has recently completed a significant programme of work to replace this critical system in which we played a crucial role. Our teams operated within a complex supplier ecosystem to support the successful delivery of the new service across areas including, design and architecture, delivery management, and testing.
The new platform gives the Bank a modern, secure, and resilient foundation while paving the way for future innovations such as increased settlement hours, additional APIs, and synchronised payments. In just the first six months after launch, the RTGS system processed more than 25 million transactions worth over £90 trillion, with daily peaks exceeding £900 billion.
Delivering the Bank’s largest digital transformation programme in a generation
Every day, the Bank of England’s RTGS service settles around £850 billion in payments, keeping money moving, and helping the UK economy run smoothly. With the existing system recognised as not being ready for future industry demand, it was time for change.
The scale and complexity of the challenge was enormous. Together, the Bank and PA mobilised large teams with new skills and capabilities to successfully stand up the Programme. Under the close public scrutiny that comes with delivering critical national infrastructure, the team navigated numerous technical and delivery challenges whilst maintaining a rigorous focus on the highest standards of security, resilience, and testing.”
Undertaking a high-stakes journey with zero margin for error
The multi-year programme involved delivering a range of new technical capabilities from scratch, all while keeping the existing RTGS service fully operational. Any disruption could halt banking services for UK businesses, sending shock waves through the economy.
RTGS plays a role in the smooth functioning of every single electronic payment in the UK. RTGS is essential for financial stability and also for monetary stability.”
Our role was to augment the Bank of England teams; we brought a mix of change expertise, technical design capability, and programme delivery experience needed for a transformation on this scale. This was backed by our proven track record of delivering major transformations for government and financial institutions, including a long-standing relationship working alongside the Bank of England.
Designing a one-of-its-kind platform for the future
Delivering the vision meant tackling some huge technical challenges. We worked side by side with the Bank to solve these challenges. This included defining over two thousand business requirements, mapping businesses processes, and leading parts of both the high level and detailed design.
Deploying expert delivery management across complex workstreams
Programme delivery meant navigating huge complexity, including dependencies within the Bank and the wider economy, across global networks, and among multiple suppliers. We led delivery and assurance activities across a number of complex workstreams. With so many moving parts, we had to stay laser-focused on priorities, maintaining quality, eliminating risk, and helped the Bank make the right each time.
We were relentless in validating every detail – ensuring no requirement or design element was overlooked – and steadfastly adhered to the Bank’s core principles, such as prioritising data integrity above all else. We never compromised on what mattered most.”
Supporting people through change
Our support enabled the Bank to make the right decisions to ensure the programme was delivered and launched successfully. The Bank shifted how its people worked, moving to a product-led operating model, where we supported them every step of the way. Our team delivered hands-on training, collaborated with technical teams to develop new products, and ran extensive testing to give users confidence with the new system.
Our collaborative and supportive way of working meant people didn’t see us as suppliers, but as colleagues.”
Ensuring billions are safely settled each day
Over a number of years, the programme delivered major milestones. These include migration to ISO 20022 – starting with CHAPS payments in June 2023, the launch of new data centres, and a wave of new technical capabilities. In the first six months after go-live, the new RTGS system settled over 25 million transactions, worth over £90 trillion.
The impact reaches far into the future. The new system is more resilient against growing cyber threats, works better with other systems, and is more user-friendly. It’s built to support innovation, enabling more banks than ever to bring new ideas to life. Together, these advances create a modern payments system that will keep money flowing securely through one of the world’s biggest economies and set the standard for decades to come.
Our well-established relationship with PA enabled our programme to deliver through what was an incredibly complex change journey for industry and the Bank of England.”
I am immensely proud of the role that PA played in supporting the Bank to deliver this fundamental and transformational change to the UK’s payments infrastructure. This provides a future platform for innovation and is an exemplar in successful transformation.”
Explore more
