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OPG Home Page

OPG becomes part of the Government Banking Service launched in May 2008

The Government Banking Service (GBS), incorporating OPG, is the new banking services shared service provider to the public sector. GBS is part of HM Revenue and Customs and is currently headed by Tim Horan. Other ex-OPG contacts remain essentially the same for now.

This website is currently under review and will be updated and relaunched in due course. In the meantime some key documents are attached to update you on our progress to date, including a message from Gabs Makhlouf, the former HMRC banking services director responsible for GBS, and some update newsletters.

Please feel free to contact the team with any questions or feedback.

GBS has procured new banking services with the Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) and Citigroup (Citi). Our current service offering through Xafinity Paymaster and our new service offering are part of the government-wide shared services initiative. GBS is compliant with EU legislation in offering the banking services to organisations in the public sector. Organisations covered by the contracts do not need to go out to tender (including EU Procurements) in their own right - they can use the GBS banking services simply by signing up to an SLA with GBS.

A major benefit of this is the time and money saved by not conducting a procurement exercise.

HM Treasury issued the new Managing Public Money guidance on 18th December 2008. Annex 5.7 covers banking. This guidance requires public sector organisations to use the GBS as far as possible to ensure that their banking arrangements offer value for money for the public sector as a whole. The following two quotes are taken directly from the guidance:

‘Each public sector organisation should run its cash management and money transmission policies to minimise the cost to the Exchequer as a whole. This usually means using the Government Banking Service.’

‘Any public sector organisation which chooses not to use the GBS as its primary banking service should justify that its policy offers value for money for the public sector as a whole. This stringent test can rarely be satisfied in practice and always needs to be cleared with the Treasury.’

Annex 5.7 Banking (HM Treasury website)

Information on the transfer of ownership of OPG from HM Treasury to HM Revenue and Customs (which took effect on 3 April 2006)

OPG's mission statement is:

To provide a secure, value for money account and banking transaction service, which encourages public sector bodies to maximise the value of funds available to the Exchequer, and to provide accurate and timely cash flow information to the Treasury.

OPG is responsible for holding the working balances of Government Departments and other public bodies in high-level accounts at the Bank of England where they are made available to the National Loans Fund overnight to reduce the government's borrowing costs. To allow its customers to operate individual accounts and make and receive payments while retaining their balances for the benefit of the Exchequer OPG operates a bank account ledger system and a full range of banking services.

Please feel free to contact the team with any questions or feedback