As part of our industry engagement on Certainty of Fate⇓, a critical concept supporting the future of account-to-account (A2A) payments in the UK, Pay.UK and Open Banking Limited have recently delivered a series of joint presentations with several trade associations, including the British Retail Consortium, the Payments Association, UK Finance and Innovate Finance. Led by our policy expert, Elizabeth Darkens, product delivery lead, Mark Jones, and senior policy manager at Open Banking, Daniel Jenkinson, each session explored what Certainty of Fate means, the challenges currently slowing progress, and how the industry is working together to overcome them. Below is a summary of the key points discussed.
Why Certainty of Fate matters to A2A payments in the UK
With growing ambitions for Open Banking payments in line with the National Payments Vision, Certainty of Fate has become a foundation for delivering trusted, real-time payment experiences. As A2A payments become more commonly available in retail, ecommerce and subscription journeys, both payers and payees need clear, timely and unambiguous confirmation of whether a payment has failed or succeeded, even if it may take a little longer for funds to arrive in the destination account.
Reliable Certainty of Fate underpins customer confidence. Without it, merchants may delay fulfilment, customers may retry payments unnecessarily, and payment service providers face operational burdens managing exceptions. As Mark explained, timely confirmation is particularly important at checkout, in physical stores or in digital services such as food delivery or media streaming. Even rare pockets of uncertainty, so-called “edge cases”, can undermine trust and hinder the adoption of A2A payments.
Key challenges identified
In a series of industry workshops Pay.UK conducted in 2025 with Open Banking Limited, account providers, Payment Initiation Service Providers (PISPs), and trade associations, four main barriers were identified:
Although Open Banking Standard version 4.0 fully supports Certainty of Fate, not all account providers have implemented one or all of the following:
-
- Mandatory payment status codes
- Optional “status reason” codes that explain delays
- Consistent terminal payment state definitions.
If any part of this information is missing, PISPs may not know whether a payment is confirmed, pending, or has failed.
The path to improvement
Despite these challenges, the direction of travel is clear and momentum is strong:
- Clarifying Faster Payment System rules
We are finalising updated Faster Payment System rules to improve how qualified acceptances and other statuses are defined and communicated. This will address the first two challenges and align the guidance in the rules to A2A use cases. Industry feedback has been constructive, with no major changes requested.
- Strengthening information flows to PISPs through clear mandates
Version 4.0 of the Open Banking Standard provides the capability for account providers to give full Certainty of Fate for PISPs, however key elements, such as “Status Reason” are not uniformly provided. The draft Commercial Variable Payment Multi-Lateral Agreement (cVRP MLA) requires full implementation of payment status codes and definitions. Over time, this should help standardise behaviour across those account providers who are participating in the cVRP MLA, reduce inconsistency and improve information flow to PISPs.
- Ensuring merchants use suitable accounts
Some merchant accounts, particularly some indirect or offline updating accounts, are not well suited to real-time A2A payments. We recommend that the scheme rules for A2A payments should ensure onboarding processes encourage merchants to use accounts that support instant posting.
Joint industry engagement
We continue to collaborate with Open Banking Limited to ensure our two domains deliver a seamless A2A payments ecosystem. Alongside working closely with account providers, PISPs and financial trade associations to shape this work, we are also engaging with sponsor banks to ensure indirect participants can fully support Certainty of Fate where appropriate.
Next steps
Following the release of our Certainty of Fate paper in November 2025, alongside the recent publication of updated Faster Payment System rule wording, next steps include:
- A consolidated summary of all Certainty of Fate work to be shared with regulators by the end of Q1 2026
- Ongoing collaboration between Pay.UK and Open Banking Limited to support wider enhancements to the A2A experience.
Elizabeth said: “Certainty of Fate is essential to building trust in A2A payments. What we are doing now is making the work visible, engaging widely, and ensuring the relevant parties in the payments ecosystem understand their role in delivering clearer, and more consistent end-user outcomes.”
Certainty of Fate is about a payer or payee being sure whether a payment has been successful or unsuccessful; and the timeliness of gaining this understanding – Certainty of Fate paper
