Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Conclusion 16
78th Report - The Bank of England’s Real-Time Gross Settlement Renewal Programme
Published 29 Apr 2026
Addressed to HM Treasury
Public Accounts Committee The Bank of England’s Real-Time Gross Settlement Renewal Programme All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
The Bank made an early strategic decision to move away from its legacy system for the RTGS and use a new technology approach, one of the first central banks to do so.34 The Bank explained that although the legacy system was reliable and remained operational, it had limited flexibility 27 C&AG’s Report, para 1.18 28 Q 7; C&AG’s Report, para 1.18 29 Qq 5-6; C&AG’s Report, para 1.18 30 C&AG’s Report, para 1.19 31 Qq 8-9 32 Qq 4 and 7 33 C&AG’s Report, para 1.20 34 C&AG’s Report, paras 2.23-2.25 11 and was difficult to update, making it hard to adapt to new requirements. It wanted to switch to a more modern, modular platform that could better respond to current and future developments in the payments infrastructure, such as the demand for longer operating hours. By taking the decision early to modernise the technology, the Bank reduced the risk that the performance of the legacy system would constrain future choices or dictate the scope and timetable of the modernisation programme.35
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).