Sponsor Bank Service

Description The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) wish to give notice of market engagement opportunity in relation to two linked but separate future procurements for DWP payment contingency services (together referred to in this notice as the “Payment Contingency Services (“PCS”)). The intention of the PCS is to ensure DWP has robust contingencies in place to make benefit and pension entitlement payments to its customers on the dates they are due. The PCS are invoked only in exceptional circumstances where there is a delay in DWP releasing Bacs payment file(s). The DWP intends for the relevant services to be provided under two separate, interdependent contracts (both of which are required to allow for invocation of PCS) as follows: - Short Term Payment Contingency (“STPC”) - Lot 1: This service reformats Bacs payments files into Faster Payment files for onward submission into the Faster Payment infrastructure  - Sponsor Bank (“SB”) - Lot 2: This service is required for the settlement of funds with the Bank of England.  These market engagement activities relate to both the STPC and SB procurements. Please note that as these are separate procurements, different procurement processes and/or commercial approach may apply to each procurement. In addition, each procurement may be awarded, delayed, or withdrawn independently of the other.  This notice relates specifically to the SB procurement.  A separate Preliminary Market Engagement Notice has been issued for the STPC procurement, which can be found on Find a Tender Service.