Under the Financial Conduct Authority’s Payment Accounts Directive (PAD), the Money and Pensions Service (MaPS) has a statutory duty to provide a web-based Payment Accounts Comparison (PACT) Tool. The aim of PAD is to improve access to payment accounts, increasing competition and making fees and charges more transparent and comparable. As such, MaPS had to create an operationally independent tool to compare a specific and limited list of fees and charges known as the Linked Services List.
The PACS tool has been operated by MaPS since 2018. Though the tool is developed and maintained by MaPS directly, an external provider is required to supply a data feed of the Payment Service Providers’ (PSP) Payment account products, and to compare a specific and limited list of fees and charges known as the Linked Services list. The current contract for this service expires in September 2024.