Bank Of England: The Latest Meeting Of The Standards Advisory Panel (SAP)

Minutes

Date of meeting: 19 March 2025

Item 1: Welcome and actions

The Chair welcomed members and provided an overview of the agenda for the meeting.

The Chair also introduced Nuala Jackson from UK Finance, who will be joining the Panel as an observer. Nuala is responsible for UK Finance’s Standards Engagement Forum and will be a key partner in ensuring alignment between the two groups.

The Secretariat shared the action log:

• Members to respond to skills matrix for prospective new members by 17 December 2024 – Completed.
• Secretariat to add NPV as a standing agenda item – Completed.
• Secretariat to add a discussion to digital identity on the NPV item for the next meeting – Competed and to be discussed under item 4.
• Bank to schedule call between SAP API expert(s) and the Chair of the APEX group, on next steps from the report – Completed.
• Bank and Pay.UK to discuss the ownership of API harmonisation work – Ongoing alongside wider changes to payment’s ecosystem.

ACTION: The Panel to receive an update on the ownership of the API Harmonisation Work.

Item 2: Cash management

Presented by Hein Wagenaar – Senior Principal Product Strategy Manager at Oracle. The Panel heard of both the challenges of unstructured data and the benefits that structured data could bring, with improvements including faster payment reconciliation.

A member asked how we realise some of the benefits and the speaker spoke of this programme being driven by stakeholders.

A member asked about the experience of users in other global jurisdictions, particularly in East/South East Asia, and the speaker explained how Europe is currently leading in this sector.

The Chair and members thanked the speaker for his presentation.

Item 3: AI in payment data standards

Presented by Paulo De Sa – Managing Director of Generative AI at Barclays. Paulo spoke about the approach Barclays were taken to Generative AI, aiming to innovate with a risk-based mindset. They first emphasised the importance of staff education, so that they can fully understand the risks around it. AI is currently being used by 15% of staff, with a drive for a standards-based approach to innovation.

The speaker spoke of outputs including creating a risk-based governance framework, forming a community that looks at the holistic landscape of risk and opportunity, whilst also creating a landscape for possibly scaling up AI activities.

A member asked about having an open source on the findings of the organisation, to help industry move towards AI.The speaker agreed that they would be happy to share how they viewed risk and how they evaluated this against the opportunities.

The speaker also spoke of having to adapt existing standards when innovating with AI. The Panel noted the useful discussion and agreed to return to the topic in the future as thinking on the topic matures.

Item 4: Digital identity in the National Payments Vision (NPV)

Presented by Hannah Rutter - Chief Executive of the Office for Digital Identities and Attributes. Hannah spoke of the creation of a trust framework for standards, which looks at enhancing digital checks by ensuring trustworthy technology, this group currently has 30 participants feeding into their research.

Hannah asked members about their views on the barriers and opportunities to digital identity. Responses included:

• • Immature standardisation.
  • Slow movement but opportunity for banks to work together.
  • Using customer facing payment technology to tackle fraud.
  • Enhance open banking, but challenge of lifecycle in the payment on how to pass identity throughout the life of a payment.

Hannah added that technological capabilities were present but there was a barrier for industry to adopt practises.

ACTION: The Chair and Secretariat to discuss how to continue conversation around digital identity, and consider how the Panel can influence policy-making on standards in this area and/or facilitate the definition of conventions or standards as appropriate.

Item 5: Any other business

The Panel agreed on the future dates of SAP.

A member raised that the recent departure of a SAP member had meant there is a vacancy in the responsibility to review the ongoing API work.

ACTION: Members to consider getting involved with the ongoing API work facilitated by the SAP, and to reach out to Fiona Hamilton/Grant Osborn if happy to be involved.

Attendees

Members:

Karen Braithwaite, Chair (Barclays)
Domenico Scaffidi, DS Payments
Fiona Hamilton, Open Banking
Mark Streather, Bank of England
Martin Sansone, Pay.UK
Nuala Jackson, UK Finance
Robert White, PagoNxt
Toby Young, Ebury

Other attendees:

Bank of England Secretariat
Hannah Rutter, Office for Digital Identities and Attributes
Hein Wagenaar, Oracle
Paulo De Sa, Barclays

Apologies:

Jo Oxley, Government Banking Service
Helene Oger-Zaher, Financial Conduct Authority
Naresh Aggarwal, Association of Corporate Treasurers
Rejani Kumar, Payment Systems Regulator