Businesses can shape plans for 'enhanced data' in payments

Enhanced data is information that will be attached to payments that enable organisations to better understand "what a payment relates to" and to reconcile those transactions more easily, according to the Payment Strategy Forum, the body that recommended the feature be introduced.

The enhanced data capability is one of a number of new features that the Payment Strategy Forum, and subsequently the UK's Payment Systems Regulator, has endorsed as part of an overhaul of the infrastructure underlying the UK's main payment systems.

Pay.UK, which has been tasked with designing and implementing the new payments architecture, is setting up an advisory group to work on the development of the enhanced data capability. Businesses can apply to participate in the group up until 7 December.

Businesses can also complete a questionnaire Pay.UK has published on its website, the feedback to which will be used to "identify segments, sectors, stakeholders, use cases and benefits for enhanced data, helping the project in turn to map an information matrix informing scope and field of engagement", Pay.UK said.

Pay.UK said the introduction of the enhanced data capability could see information relating to "the purpose of the payment, tax and benefit information, a personalised message or underlying business transaction details" attached to payments. It said the feature could also "provide a capability to link items to a payment".

"It is expected that a wide range of organisations could benefit from involvement in the development of enhanced data, ranging from government, commercial and consumer organisations through to financial service providers, system suppliers/fintechs, industry associations and trade bodies," Pay.UK said.

Henry Burkitt, an expert in payments law at Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind Out-Law.com, said: "At this stage, it is not clear the uses that 'enhanced data' will be put to, but it is clear to see the potential benefits of including additional data alongside a payment, rather than routing such data via a separate method."

"One cautionary note is that the demands of payments and payments infrastructure are evolving at a fierce pace meaning that this, as well as the overarching new payments architecture, must be future-proofed as far as possible," he said.