TrueLayer Blog: payments advice, news & Insights

Blog

The complete guide to Pay by Bank: what is it and how does it work?

The complete guide to Pay by Bank, the fast-growing online payment method, offering an alternative to cards. Should your business be offering it at checkout?

What is Pay by Bank header

Featured articles

black friday promotions

Your Black Friday payments checklist for champions of the checkout

Live up to your customer's payment expectations and reign champion of the checkout this peak season.

VRP is back on the agenda

Recurring payments

VRP is back on the agenda for 2025

Find out why VRP (AKA Bank on file) is finally having its breakout moment in 2025.

Hey, I'm Andy from TrueLayer, and I'm going to try and tell you everything you need to know about Pay by Bank—in just ninety seconds. Let’s start the clock. Let’s keep it simple. What is Pay by Bank? It’s a payment method that lets you pay directly from your bank account via your banking app—with zero need for card networks. That could mean buying pizza, paying for flights, or just about anything in between. And it’s actually pretty easy—and very quick. It looks a bit like this: start by tapping the Pay by Bank button, then choose your bank from the list. If you’ve used it before, we can even preselect your preferred bank. You then review the payment, and you’re seamlessly redirected to your bank app to approve it using secure biometrics. That’s Face ID or a fingerprint, to you and me. And that’s it—success. But no time to relax—we're on the clock! Now, this might be the first time you’re hearing about it, but every month in the UK, 27 million payments are made using Pay by Bank. And most people who haven’t tried it yet say they’d be happy to—if given the option. On the merchant side, nine out of ten businesses are already planning to adopt it in one way or another. So what’s in it for businesses? Number one: more potential sales. No cards means no long card numbers, no clunky 3DS2—just a smoother experience from start to finish. And it converts. Number two: because payment details are pre-populated and verified with biometrics, things like card-not-present fraud, chargebacks, and authorized push payment fraud are virtually eliminated. Number three: lower costs. Without all the intermediaries and manual admin, the total cost of Pay by Bank is typically lower than card payments. I'm running out of time—one last benefit: instant refunds. And trust me, shoppers love instant refunds. And breathe. That was a lot to cram into ninety seconds. If you’d like to take your time and learn more about Pay by Bank—and why brands like Just Eat Takeaway, lastminute.com, Ryanair, and Papa John’s already offer it at checkout—you can read our in-depth guide. There should be a link on screen now. And that’s it. Thanks for watching.

Everything you need to know about Pay by Bank in 90 seconds

Get up to speed on Pay by Bank, how it works and its main benefits in just 90 seconds.

Viewing:

money moving sideways

Consumer Data Right: what open banking in Australia needs now

Australia’s Consumer Data Right turns one year old. What's needed to make open banking a success?

Pride 2021: 5 ways to be a better ally

As part of our Pride month celebrations, we hosted a company-wide roundtable on what it means to be an ally. Here’s what we learned.

Abstract UI elements moving upwards

5 reasons the checkout is changing – ecommerce payments post-pandemic

New research from YouGov suggests old payment methods like cards are holding back online retailers.

UI showing an account being verified

Introducing Verification API – from 3 days to 3 clicks

How does open banking account verification tie in with bank account verification apis? Read more on how open banking verification has been simplified.

What is SCA and how can open banking help?

SCA is required by open banking payment providers. Learn more about strong customer authentication and how it relates to open banking here.

Two chat bubbles having a conversation

Business growth

In conversation with Freetrade: opening up investing

How open banking turned a black box payments process into a deposit experience that customers love.

TrueTalk with Jingrui

Meet Jingrui – problem solver, podcast host, and TrueLayer's global partnerships manager.

Two arrows pointing in opposite directions with a £ symbol in the middle

Open banking refunds and reverse payments: what you need to know

A guide to what you can and can't do with open banking refunds.

gRPC load balancing in Rust

In the first post in our open source series, we share our solution for gRPC client-side load balancing, using ginepro.

money moving sideways

Open banking is coming to retail: here’s why it matters

Ecommerce providers are looking to open banking as a new way to take payments.

Iconography of a closed padlock

Consumer protections: how do open banking payments compare?

As open banking payments become more ubiquitous in the UK, we examine: how secure are they and what protections do they offer when something goes wrong?

Abstract UI elements showing deposits, signups and payouts

iGaming operators: why open banking is part of our strategy

Kindred, PaddyPower Betfair and Entain tell us why open banking is a key part of their payments and compliance strategy.

Browse by category

Get started

Talk to us

Curious about where our open banking payments network could take your business?

Start building

Create an account now to explore our APIs.

Keep exploring

More great content from our team