A year into the the current Labour Government, politicians, party members and the business world gathered in Liverpool for the 2025 Labour Party Conference.

While there were a few key changes in leadership, the government’s commitment to tech — and payments — as a driving force for economic growth remains strong.

Fresh from attending, I sat down for a quick chat with my Colleague Lisa on my key takeaways from the conference.

Transcript:

Lisa: Hi, Megan. Thanks for joining us for another TrueLayer AMA. We're here to talk all about the Labour Party Conference that you attended last week. Leading up to the conference, there was a bit of change in some of the personnel at the top of government. Can you tell us a bit about what they said at the conference and if any of their priorities have changed?

Megan: Absolutely. I would start with saying that although some of the faces in those positions have changed, that kind of pro-tech and pro-competition direction of travel is definitely locked in with this government. There are three key personnel I would draw attention to.

First of all, we've got a new business secretary, Peter Kyle. Interestingly, he actually moved over from the tech brief. So I think we're already starting to see him bring that more pro-tech stance to the work of the Department of Business and Trade, of which, for example, they're gonna be responsible for progressing smart data. Second of all, we've got a new tech secretary, Liz Kendall. At the conference, she spoke a lot about making tech safer, but she also really passionately spoke about the UK championing more of our homegrown tech companies, of which TrueLayer is really proudly one of them.

And then thirdly, we've got a new city minister, Lucy Rigby.

She spoke a lot about fintech in general being this engine of growth for financial services. We clearly see progressing Pay by Bank as being the fuel for that engine of growth. And I think it'd be interesting to see how this then translates into momentum behind existing initiatives such as the government's National Payments Vision.

Lisa: Gotcha. And what do you think that all means for merchants?

Megan: So I think for merchants, I would say that clearly the government no longer sees technology as a standalone sector in its own right. It absolutely sees it as kind of an enabler of growth across the entire economy, of which payments is one of them.

Our job is to now make sure that the government really understands the role that, you know, delivering a modern payments infrastructure powered by Pay by Bank, what role that will actually play in kind of being the foundation on which it can build the rest of its ambitions for growth.

Lisa: Speaking of being at the conference, you were on a panel while you were there. Can you tell us a little bit about who you were with and what you discussed?

Megan: Absolutely.

So TrueLayer hosted a panel with the Startup Coalition and Open Banking Limited (OBL) alongside the SCA and also the chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Fintech, Luke Charter MP. Now on the face of it, that's quite a diverse group of representatives.

But interestingly, there was a lot of alignment, amongst us to kind of look at the potential for Pay by Bank, how it's going to evolve, and actually what that means in the real world for both merchants and consumers. And Luke in particular spoke really passionately around how Pay by Bank technology can translate to real world benefits for his constituents. So for example, how Pay by Bank, powered recurring payments, could, you know, make it a lot easier for his constituents that have, you know, irregular incomes, making it easier for them to manage their money. All the way through to how can Pay by Bank technology be leveraged to encourage people to invest for the first time.

Again, all about making people's money and payments work a lot better for them. I think we all agreed with the sense that the UK has a real success story when it comes to how we've nourished our Pay by Bank sector. But really the conversation needs to shift to, how do we win the next decade? And key to that will just be unlocking the ways that consumers and merchants can use Pay by Bank.

So, you know, starting with recurring payments, but all the way through to, you know, delivering pay by bank at the point of sale. And that is going to be key to delivering the government's National Payments Vision ambition, which is to make Pay by Bank both seamless and ubiquitous.