Select committee: Public Accounts Committee

Conclusion 11

78th Report - The Bank of England’s Real-Time Gross Settlement Renewal Programme Published 29 Apr 2026 Addressed to HM Treasury
Conclusion (the committee's words)
The Bank emphasised the importance of clarity of its vision from the outset, identifying resilience, competition and innovation as core early objectives. Following industry consultation, the Bank published a blueprint for the new RTGS in 2017, setting out five priority areas: higher resilience, broader access, wider interoperability, improved user functionality and strengthened end-to-end risk management of CHAPS. The Bank told us that the five blueprint priority areas provided a “golden thread” through the programme, shaping requirements and design decisions, with an end goal of “not just going live, but staying live”.22 The Bank said it identified nearly 2,000 functional and non-functional requirements for the new system which acted as a “north star” to help guide it through the process.23

From: Public Accounts Committee, 78th Report - The Bank of England’s Real-Time Gross Settlement Renewal Programme (HC 1732), 29 April 2026

Government response

The government responded to the whole report on 4 August 2026 (deadline 29 June 2026).

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