We are pleased to publish the Pay.UK Annual Report and Financial Statements 2025, setting out the progress made over the past year and how we are continuing to support the resilience, reliability and future development of the UK’s interbank retail payments ecosystem.
2025 was a significant year for UK payments. Against a backdrop of continued growth in digital payments, evolving fraud threats and important developments in the future governance of UK payments, our focus remained on providing safe, secure and resilient payment systems and services that millions of people and businesses rely on every day.
Supporting a resilient payments ecosystem
As the recognised operator and standards body for the UK’s interbank retail payment systems, we continued to operate the Bacs Payment System (Bacs), the Faster Payment System (FPS) and the Image Clearing System (ICS) with average uptime above 99.9%. During the year, these systems processed around 12.5 billion transactions, worth more than £11 trillion, underlining their importance to the UK economy. On average, this equates to around 120,000 retail payments every five minutes, every day of the year, with more than £105 million in value processed during the same period.
A key milestone in 2025 was the successful agreement of contract extensions with Vocalink for the provision of Bacs, FPS and ICS. These arrangements provide continuity for the UK’s core interbank payment systems into the early 2030s and create stability while future payments infrastructure plans continue to develop.
Record volumes across core payment systems
Demand for digital payments continued to grow.
In 2025:
- FPS processed a record 5.5 billion transactions, an increase of 9% on the previous year
- Bacs processed a record 6.9 billion transactions, including 5 billion Direct Debits and 1.8 billion Direct Credits
- The Current Account Switch Service facilitated more than one million switches for the third consecutive year.
These figures demonstrate the continued value of trusted account-to-account payment services for consumers, businesses and organisations across the UK.
Working together to tackle fraud
Protecting users remains a shared priority across the payments industry.
During 2025, we continued to support industry efforts to prevent and respond to fraud. More than 330 organisations are now using Confirmation of Payee, with daily checks exceeding 2.7 million by the end of the year. We also enhanced our Reimbursement Claims Management System and supported the implementation of authorised push payment (APP) fraud reimbursement requirements.
Alongside this work, we worked with stakeholders across the ecosystem on initiatives designed to strengthen fraud prevention, improve information sharing and support better outcomes for consumers.
Looking to the future
The publication of the National Payments Vision and the establishment of the Payments Vision Delivery Committee provided greater clarity on the future direction of UK payments. We have continued to engage constructively with government, regulators and industry partners, bringing operational expertise and system-wide insight to discussions on the future of payments infrastructure.
During the year, we also launched a refreshed strategy built around five strategic pillars:
- Operational resilience
- Data and artificial intelligence (AI)
- Stakeholder centricity
- Continuous improvement
- Supplier management.
Together, these priorities will help ensure we continue to deliver resilient day-to-day operations while supporting the wider evolution of the payments ecosystem.
Continuing to work collaboratively
The progress outlined in this year’s report reflects the work of many organisations across the payments ecosystem.
Looking ahead, we will continue to work with stakeholders across the industry to support a payments environment that remains secure, resilient and responsive to changing user needs.
David Pitt, Chief Executive Officer at Pay.UK, said:
“As we look to the future, the importance of the role we play in the UK economy has never been clearer. The systems we operate underpin everyday life for millions of people and businesses, and safeguarding their resilience, reliability and trust remains central to everything we do.“
Read the Pay.UK Annual Report and Financial Statements 2025, here 2025-Pay.UK-Annual-Report-and-Financial-Statements.pdf.
