LONDON (Reuters) - Britain has launched a public consultation on the list of firms it wants supervised by a new consumer payments regulator, whose core objective is to inject more competition into the sector.
The government said in a statement on Tuesday it was consulting on whether Visa, Mastercard (N:MA) and the main interbank systems such as Bacs, CHAPS, Faster Payments, Link and the cheque clearing system should come under the new Payment Systems Regulator from April next year.
"An open and transparent payments system is crucial to give new players freedom to challenge the big banks without unfair barriers, and encourage new, innovative ways for customers to make payments," British junior finance minister Andrea Leadsom said.
Over 90 percent of credit and charge card transactions and all debit card transactions in Britain are made through Visa or MasterCard.
The new regulator will have strong powers to ensure that established payments systems offer access to new entrants on fair terms. It can even order the owners of the more established systems to break them up or sell them.
The government said that recent examples of innovation in payments include the ability to pay in cheques digitally using a mobile phone, and the introduction of a current account switching service.
This week French bank Groupe BPCE is teaming up with social network Twitter to allow its customers to transfer money via tweets.
(Reporting by Huw Jones; editing by Keiron Henderson)