SI laid on third-party data for interest income and card sales

HM Revenue & Customs laid a statutory instrument on 3 November 2026 covering third-party data on interest income and payment card transactions. The instrument is titled The Data-gathering (Ongoing Data: Interest and Payment Card Transactions) Regulations 2026, and the policy it supports will come into force on 1 March 2028¹.

The publication is a policy summary for the measure, which HMRC describes as "Better use of new and improved third-party data (card sales and interest income)"¹. The same page states that "the policy will come into force on 1 March 2028"¹.

Alongside the summary, HMRC has published supporting documents: a paper titled "Better use of new and improved third-party data to make it easier to pay tax right the first time", a due diligence document, a notification to HMRC document, and technical material for reporting¹. The technical material comprises a card sales data schema and an interest income data schema, each in spreadsheet form, plus user guides for the card sales XML schema and the interest income XML schema, and guidance on the interest income schema¹.

The published page does not set out which institutions must report, what fields the schemas require, or how the data will be used in practice; those details sit in the linked documents, which have not been summarised here. No estimate of the number of affected accounts or businesses appears on the page¹.

Why it matters for households

The measure concerns data that third parties, such as banks and card acquirers, hold about interest paid to savers and about card sales taken by businesses¹. The policy takes effect on 1 March 2028, so nothing changes for households or traders before that date on the basis of this instrument¹. The stated aim, in the title of the accompanying paper, is to make it easier to pay tax right the first time¹. How that works in practice, including what savers and businesses will see and when, has not been reported in the published summary.

What happens next

The regulations were laid on 3 November 2026 and the policy comes into force on 1 March 2028¹. Parliamentary scrutiny of the instrument, and any further guidance from HMRC before commencement, have not been reported. The regulation and policy section covers related rule changes as they are announced.