The challenge
A tier-1 UK bank approached Icon to deliver a project to update its systems migration strategy for processing UK retail payments via Faster Payments (FPS), Bacs and in-house.
The environment for UK retail payments infrastructure is experiencing many changes. The National Payments Vision (NPV) process during 2025 and 2026 is producing a significantly updated strategy for the retail payments market infrastructures. Pay.UK is addressing short-term enhancements to FPS, including options for adopting ISO 20022 messaging. Additionally, a new delivery company will take responsibility for funding and procuring infrastructure under the direction of a Retail Payments Infrastructure Board.
This will include further developments to existing systems, plus, crucially, options for moving to next-generation payment infrastructures.
In parallel, further growth of Open Banking, including commercial variable recurring payments (cVRPs), could increase transaction volumes on FPS by offering a viable alternative to card payments for consumer purchases. Also, innovative services are likely to migrate some current Bacs volume to FPS, for both direct credits and direct debits.
The client also needed to address known issues with its existing infrastructure, including ageing components and channels hard-wired into payments engines, together with ensuring resilience and scalability. Furthermore, the operating model and product ownership were aligned to payment types, thus reinforcing product silos, and a need was recognised for interoperability and dynamic routing as schemes converge to ISO 20022.
Against this backdrop, our client wanted to have a fully updated assessment of its target architecture for real-time payments, together with implications for its Bacs infrastructure, and to understand its migration path and transition states to deliver the target.
The approach
- Discovery workshops Business and technology sessions covering the current situation, known challenges and existing plans.
- Stakeholder deep-dives 1-on-1 follow-ups on critical points, drawing on lessons from prior SEPA work.
- Target architecture Calibrated against Icon's industry best-practice Payments Reference Architecture.
Icon engaged with the bank for a 3-month engagement to deliver the required output. Icon conducted discovery workshops on both the business side and the technology side to better understand the current situation, known challenges, and existing plans. The project looked to learn from prior Single Euro Payment Area (SEPA) implementation work, and to identify reusable services and capabilities to accelerate time to market and de-risk delivery. Icon engaged in further 1-on-1 discussions with specific stakeholders to follow up on critical points.
The work defined the target architecture, including new services to be developed, capabilities to be re-used, and components to be enhanced. The output assessed strategic implementation for clearing and settlement aligned to the target schemes. Throughout the engagement, the Icon team drew on its extensive repository of assets, including its industry best-practice Payments Reference Architecture, to calibrate the findings emerging from the client discussions
Solutions and benefits
Icon delivered an assessment of the key drivers for change, defined a target architecture, and recommended the most appropriate migration approach for the bank's Faster Payments (FPS) environment.
The change drivers included major industry strategic programmes, projected growth in FPS transaction volumes, and the opportunity to extend the capabilities of the core payments infrastructure.
Building on understanding of the existing architecture, the project defined a target architecture for FPS, particularly focusing on the execution engine and gateway. As part of this work, two potential options were identified for evolving the bank's FPS gateway to support the anticipated adoption of ISO 20022 messaging standards.
Using this target-state view, the project assessed different migration scenarios and proposed distinct transition states and roadmaps for implementation across outbound, on-us, and inbound payment flows, with key dependencies. This delivered a focus on high-value differentiating capabilities rather than commodity clearing and settlement functions.
With the environment developing quickly during 2026 the project identified four pragmatic areas for mobilisation across the bank to translate strategy into delivery.
This engagement highlights Icon's strength in pairing deep payments expertise with practical architectural thinking. By bringing clarity to the client's future real-time payments landscape and defining a structured, actionable migration path, we equipped the bank to move confidently toward a scalable, modernised infrastructure that aligns with emerging industry standards.
Our unique contribution
Icon has an established relationship with key stakeholders and a strong track record of delivering projects for the bank over several years, and the bank is also implementing the Icon Payments Framework (IPF) payments orchestration engine. Building on this foundation, Icon assessed work completed to date and ensured alignment with payments and organisational objectives.
The client understood the value of Icon's Payments Centre of Excellence for providing payments industry expertise across product and technical subject matters, and Icon fully engaged with client subject experts and executives. Our work evolved the operating model to address current challenges while building a foundation for future initiatives, including digital assets and tokenisation.
Icon's deep payments experience, and our analytical frameworks and tools, make our consultants especially effective in providing guidance, value, and delivery at a speed that is well received by the client.
