The Bank of England, the United Kingdom’s central bank, and Accenture have finalized the transformation of the Real-Time Gross Settlement service, a cornerstone of the nation’s financial system.
The joint effort rebuilt the platform’s digital core to secure and accelerate settlement of wholesale payments between institutions.
The upgrade strengthens resilience, expands access, and positions the system for future financial innovation.
RTGS underpins an average of eight hundred billion pounds in daily transactions. Following its relaunch on 28 April 2025, the new system processed more than 9.4 mn transactions worth £35.2 trillion within three months. Its busiest day handled 295,000 transactions without disruption.
Accenture designed a new ledger and settlement engine on cloud-native architecture. Automation runs over forty thousand daily tests, operational dashboards provide real-time visibility, and failover features guarantee zero data loss recovery.
The system also introduces faster onboarding, external application programming interfaces for data access, and support for a broader range of participants.
The consultancy worked with the Bank of England to embed Agile methods and build internal capabilities, aiming to ensure long-term sustainability of the project.
Shaheen Sayed, head of Accenture for the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Africa, said the project demonstrates the Bank of England’s global leadership in securing financial infrastructure.
She described the renewed RTGS as a foundation for resilience and a modern settlement engine that enables the seamless flow of value across the economy.
The Bank of England is a true world leader in providing the technology foundations for financial stability, and we are exceptionally proud of what we have achieved together to renew the UK’s payments infrastructure and improve banking systems for years to come
Shaheen Sayed, Accenture head of UK, Ireland, and Africa
“The new service is a bedrock for resilience by ensuring financial institutions access a more modern and secure settlement engine. The RTGS is at the heart of the UK payments system, and the solution enables the seamless flow of value throughout the economy, empowering the industry to innovate,” Shaheen Sayed said.
