Monday 2nd
March, 3.30pm, Grimond Room, Portcullis House
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) will hear from senior
representatives of the Bank of England on its efforts to update
the Real-Time Gross Settlement system (RTGS) on Monday
2ndMarch, at 3.30pm.
The RTGS, operated by the Bank of England (BoE), transfers
payments worth around £790bn a day between relevant parties. The
RTGS is vital to the UK's monetary and financial stability,
underpinning the UK's sterling payment systems such as Bacs, the
retail payments system.
In response to changes in the payments landscape, including the
increased reliance on digital payment methods, the BoE announced
its intention to modernise the RTGS in 2016, contracting
Accenture as its technical delivery partner in 2020.
A recent report by the National
Audit Office (NAO) found the RTGS had been successfully launched
by the BoE at a cost of £431m – 15% higher than the original
£375m approved budget, an increase viewed as reasonable by the
National Audit Office (NAO) given the programme's size and
complexity. The NAO also highlighted the BoE's ability to address
many common problems identified in other public sector digital
programmes, despite the need for several major replans during its
delivery.
Given the apparent success of the RTGS, the PAC will explore the
steps taken by the BoE throughout the programme to determine what
lessons could be learned from the governance, procurement and
ability to work with commercial partners.
MPs could also consider how the BoE will manage wider
organisational issues with technology obsolescence affecting its
IT to ensure changes made continue to benefit consumers in the
future.
Witnesses from 3.30pm:
- Sir , Deputy Governor of Markets
and Banking, Bank of England
- Victoria Cleland, Chief Cashier and Executive Director of
Payments, Bank of England
- Nathan Monk, Chief Information Officer and Executive Director
of Technology Directorate, Bank of England
