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:

Background Image

TrueTalk with Neil

Meet our quick-witted and fun-loving colleague, Neil, who is the Tech Lead for the Data API team here at TrueLayer!

Background Image

Introducing Auth Dialog V2

How the Design Team at TrueLayer designed a brand-new authentication dialog that permits end-users to share their banking data more easily.

Background Image

Next chapter: investing $7.5m in our customers

TrueLayer has just raised a $7.5m round of financing led by Northzone!

Background Image

TrueTalk with Naomi

Meet our cheerful and (effortlessly) cool colleague, Naomi, who handles Support at TrueLayer

Background Image

TrueLayer retreat 2018: building and bonding in the Sicilian sun

Jarvis Prestidge, our Software Engineer, and Nicki Clark our Visual Designer describe the TrueLayer Italian retreat and what we all discovered along the way.

Truehack #2 — Hackathon

TrueLayer’s Hackathon as seen through the eyes of a TrueLayer newbie and novice hackathon-er

Starling Bank’s API integration is live

Starling Bank has been integrated into TrueLayer’s unified API to make developers’ life easier.

Background Image

Open Banking, PSD2, the FCA and Us…

What a start to the week! TrueLayer got FCA authorised to provide Account Information Services (AIS) and Payment Initiation Services (PIS)…

Brand, Branding, and Moroccan Tajines

Building an identity along with our people.

Compliance & reg

AIS: To register or not to register?

A short note about PSD2 and the FCA regulatory process for AIS.

Background Image

TrueHack #1

TrueHack, YouHack, WeAllHack …

Shefali Roy — I’m joining TrueLayer to build Bank APIs

Let me tell you why.

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