Bank of England

How does the Bank of England facilitate payments in the UK? 🤔

When you make a payment, initial checks are carried out by your bank to confirm the details and that you have enough funds available. When this is complete, the payment will be made and create a payment obligation between your bank and the vendor’s bank.

Once this is confirmed and payments have been processed, banks need to settle what they owe each other. For card payments, retail payment operators like Visa or Mastercard help calculate what is owed between banks and confirm the transaction.

This is where the Bank of England comes in. We act as a settlement agent. The retail payment scheme tells us all of the interbank obligations and moves the money between their accounts safely.

The Bank of England provides the settlement infrastructure called RTGS (Real-Time Gross Settlement), which allows payments between banks to be settled securely and reliably.

Learn from Zach and Jamilla’s chat in the full podcast episode. Available across Spotify, YouTube and Apple Podcasts.

Watch the full episode:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/5O5hDdRxTk3JEy7Q3HOLiF?si=0kop48uGQ5CyYaY2PTNPTg

Governor Andrew Bailey answers a question from social media.

❓ Can the Bank of England not mandate or do better at getting banks to pass through the Bank Rate to consumer savings accounts?

Hannah, Year 6 student, interviews Victoria Cleland, Chief Cashier, about our banknotes design consultation 💷

👧🏻 What are the main reasons the Bank has decided to redesign its banknotes?

👧🏻 How often does the Bank update or redesign its banknotes and why?

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Have a look at our shortlist and tell us which animals you would like to see on our next series of banknotes.

🫵 You can select up to two examples from each category. The consultation closes on 3 July.

Find the links in our link in bio or the comments below ⤵️

Governor Andrew Bailey goes through a question from social media about today’s interest rate decision, inflation, and the economy.

❓ Chris asked: If we assume the Iran conflict ends this month what will UK inflation look like over the next 12 months