Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Conclusion 18
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 told us that the RTGS programme reinforced the importance of investing in new technology at the right time and that it could not “keep pushing the investment to the right” without increasing the risk of obsolescence or making future change more difficult.38 The Bank said that its experience with the RTGS is now shaping how it approaches its wider IT modernisation, including decisions about when to upgrade systems and how to manage ageing technology. It told us that prioritising investment in a strategic way was a key lesson from the programme and is trying to apply this across the Bank’s other major change programmes, for example, its upgrade of its record management system.39 35 Qq 3, 5, 31 and 40 36 C&AG’s Report, para 1.7. The ISO 20022 messaging standard is an international standard that facilitates the sending of enhanced payments data. 37 Qq 18 and 38-39 38 Q 31 39 Qq 30-31 12 2 Programme delivery and future enhancements Programme management
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).