The Bank of England says that its upgraded real-time gross settlement system has gone live, which will drive “wholesale settlement efficiency and allow “greater competition”.  

The central bank adds that its new RTGS, which “sits at the heart of all UK payments,” will boost resilience, provide greater access, widen interoperability and increases user functions. 

It says that the updated RTGS platform along with updates made to ISO 20022 payments for the clearing house automated payment system in 2023, is a major upgrade for payments, such as mortgages. 

The central bank says the upgraded platforms will “reduce the impact of technical issues on service availability”. 

Allow direct access to central bank money settlement for a wider range of participants, boost cross-border payments and resilience. 

And support a “changing payment environment” by providing “richer access to payment and liquidity data”. 

The improved RTGS platform went live on Monday.

The BoE adds: “The new core ledger and settlement engine will also provide a strong foundation on which to build further functionality.  

“The renewed RTGS will benefit from this flexibility to continuously evolve the service to make sure it meets the changing needs of the industry, in responding to immediate issues and in making strategic enhancements.  

“The Bank is working closely with industry to assess business cases before deciding which features to implement and in what order.”