If you are weighing where to hold an e-money licence, the UK payment services regulation rewrite now on the table should change how you read the UK option. HM Treasury wants to lift the authorisation and prudential requirements that currently sit in the Payment Services Regulations 2017 and the Electronic Money Regulations 2011 out of legislation and put them into FCA rules. The consultation closes at 11:59pm on 6 October 2026.
The licensing read is this: the substance of an electronic money institution application is not being loosened, but the place the requirements are written down would change, and with it the speed at which they can change again. If your board signed off a UK entity partly because the prudential numbers were pinned in statute, that assumption is the one to revisit before October.
What the UK payment services regulation rewrite actually does
HM Treasury published the consultation on 14 July 2026. It puts the figure at nearly 1,200 firms authorised or registered under the PSRs and EMRs today, so this is not a niche adjustment.
The core proposal is delegation. Where the government decides to hand responsibility for a requirement to the FCA, the provision would be removed from the statute book and replaced with rules in the FCA Handbook. Two items on the list are squarely licensing matters: authorisation and registration processes, and prudential and safeguarding requirements, including initial and ongoing capital and how customer funds are protected on insolvency.
Not everything moves. The government expects to keep the perimeter and key definitions in legislation, including the definition of electronic money. Changes would come through secondary legislation. The retained Interchange Fee Regulation and the 2015 interchange regulations sit outside this exercise.
Does this change how you get an EMI licence?
Not this autumn. Nothing here rewrites an application you are preparing now, and the UK e-money licensing requirements on our matrix are unchanged as at today.
What changes is the mechanism behind them. A requirement fixed in secondary legislation moves at the pace of Parliament. The same requirement in the Handbook moves at the pace of an FCA consultation. That is better for a regulator adapting to tokenised payments and worse for a three-year capital plan. Firms choosing between the UK and an EU establishment should price that difference deliberately rather than discover it later, which is the sort of comparison our e-money regime comparison is built for.
One misreading to head off. The consultation keeps the issuance of electronic money as a distinct regulated activity and does not propose merging the EMI and payment institution regimes into a single licence. EU commentary about the e-money regime folding into the payment institution regime under PSD3 describes a different jurisdiction, and importing it into UK planning will send you down the wrong path.
Stablecoins enter the payments perimeter
The other licensing change is scope. The government intends to regulate the use of certain stablecoins for payments, alongside a new regulated activity for issuing a qualifying stablecoin in the UK. It is consulting on whether an issuer needs additional permissions to provide payment services, or can do so on the strength of its issuance authorisation, in the way credit institutions already can. Stablecoins issued overseas, other than from a future recognised jurisdiction, stay outside the payments perimeter and are handled as qualifying cryptoassets, which keeps them in the UK cryptoasset regime instead.
What to do before 6 October
Respond if delegation would affect your capital or safeguarding plan, and say so with numbers from your own model. Check whether your UK entity thesis depends on statutory fixity. If you issue or plan to issue a payment stablecoin, read the perimeter questions closely, because the permission you will need is still genuinely open.
Sources
- HM Treasury, Modernising Payment Services Regulation, 14 July 2026
- HM Treasury, consultation text, chapters 2 and 3
Verified 24 September 2026. Informational only, not legal advice.