A consultation paper on the NPS has been prepared to guide the discussion and is available on the Department’s website.
Launching the consultation Minister McGrath said:
“Ensuring Ireland has an accessible and innovative payment system is vital for our society and economy. All citizens should be able to participate fully in all aspects of modern life using digital or cash methods of payment. While technology can enable vulnerable groups partake in society in new ways, it should not exclude them. I want to ensure choice is at the centre of our future payments strategy.
As the trend towards digitalisation continues, we have to ensure that people are not left behind and we must avoid the risk of financial exclusion. We must recognise the important role that cash continues to play in our society and economy, and this is a role I am determined to protect. The public consultation exercise affords interested groups and members of the public to have their say on the future of our payments system, and I would like to hear as many voices as possible.”
The Minister is looking forward to hearing from both the public and industry on the future of payments through this public consultation. This consultation is now open for submissions until 14 February 2024. The responses to the public consultation will form an important part of the NPS to be published in 2024.
Terms of Reference for a NPS were published in June of 2023 and the development of the NPS is led by the Department of Finance. The last national policy in this area was set out in the National Payments Plan (NPP) in 2013 and, since this time, the payments landscape has changed significantly in Ireland.
The Strategy will set out a roadmap for the future evolution of the entire payments system, taking account of developments in digital payments, cash usage and how future changes should be made to the legislative criteria relating to Access to Cash.
A key element of the work will be to examine and analyse fraud, which is a critical issue and something that was not considered at the time of the NPP ten years ago. While much of this area is governed by EU legislation, it is important that the NPS examines and analyses payment fraud to see if further domestic measures can be identified to prevent fraud. On a related matter, work on financial literacy is already underway within the Department on this issue that was covered in a separate recommendation of the Retail Banking Review.
Within the payment roadmap, the NPS will also look at crypto-assets, instant payments, open banking, and what new data needs to be collected on the payments landscape.
Finally, the NPS is looking at two inter-related issues: cash access and cash acceptance.
On access to cash, it will consider the likely evolution of cash usage and how the criteria for reasonable access to cash that will be set out in the upcoming Access to Cash legislation should evolve as cash usage changes in the future. The legislation will calibrate the criteria to ensure that cash access will remain at about June 2023 levels, initially.
A related issue concerns the need to ensure that cash can be accepted as a means of payment where possible. It will, therefore, look at the acceptance of cash issue and consider, inter alia, if legislation should be introduced to require certain sectors or sub-sectors to accept or facilitate the acceptance of cash; and if it should be policy to require the public service to accept or facilitate the acceptance of cash.
Queries can be sent to nps@finance.gov.ie
