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The Wholesale Distribution Steering Group have the objective of overseeing the design of a new end-state model for wholesale cash distribution. This is to support the UK in an environment of declining cash volumes.
Date of meeting: 4 August 2021
Location: This meeting took place via video/audio link
Minutes
Item 1 – Standing agenda items
14 July 2021 minutes:
The group agreed the 14 July 2021 minutes, and approved their publication
Sharing information on stakeholder management
The Bank informed members that they have written to the Competition Markets Authority (CMA) to provide an update on the Wholesale Work.
Item 2 – Progress Update
Project status
Eversheds reported that this phase of work is now complete and a business case has been presented to members for consideration.
Business case summary
Eversheds provided a summary of the business case which includes a transition plan with an accelerated site rationalisation programme, operational costs for the provision of cash services and counterfactual modelling to demonstrate a utility model will maintain future resilience of the Wholesale Cash market in the UK.
There are three key areas where some members have requested further information to help inform their decision: Governance structure, cost certainty and transition risks. To address these questions, Eversheds has proposed that the clean team reconvenes during the 12 week period leading up to the October 29 decision point.
In addition, WDSG agreed that where firms were having to make assumptions to feed into their individual business cases these could be shared with the central team to check for consistency.
Glidepath summary
Eversheds noted that there is a meeting scheduled with members on 6 August to agree a work plan leading up to the October 29 decision point. A detailed timetable will be presented to funding members outlining the key activities and deliverables during this period.
Next steps/frequency of WDSG meetings moving forward
Members agreed that future WDSG meetings should be aligned with the key outputs from the 12 week programme of work once developed. This will likely move to monthly meetings rather than bi-weekly.
Item 3 – Public Update
The Bank proposed, in the interest of being open and transparent, that a public update document on the wholesale development work would be helpful post the October 29 decision point. This would outline progress made, the shape of the utility and next steps. It would also provide an opportunity to summarise the feedback from the public consultation process last year, and how this fed into the design work. A formal proposed structure will be presented to members for agreement in due course.
Item 4 – Review Action Log
Actions were reviewed and closed where applicable.
Item 5 – AOB
None.
Committee attendees
Bank of England: Sarah John (Chair), Elisabeth Bertalanffy-Fournier, Ronan McClintock, James Best, Molly Galligan
Eversheds: Ros Kellaway, Trystan Richards, Russell Saunders, Mark McLintock
Barclays: Tim Allen
HSBC: Sue Yarham
Lloyds Banking Group: Martin Barrett
Post Office: Russell Hancock
Natwest: Richard Talbot
Santander UK: Robert White
HM Treasury: Derek Dunne
Virgin Money: Derek Walker
G4S: Mike Bowen
TRM: Mark Loveridge
Vaultex: Phil Vaughan
Apologies
Nick Butt (BOE), Paul Pugh (Eversheds), Simon Walker (KPMG), Paul Van Der Knapp (G4S), Azin Roussos (HMT), Anne Jessopp (TRM), Kevin McMullan (Danske), Julie Fitzgibbon (BOI), John Garrett (AIB)
