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 the future of payments. Understand what Pay by Bank is, how it works, and its key benefits for your business in this quick guide.

Viewing:

TrueLayer's new brand: introducing the “never before”

New visuals, new story, new emotions. Say hello to the new TrueLayer brand.

Hand pointing at a finger print icon

Could open banking have a ‘de-risking’ moment?

New action by regulators and banks to tackle APP fraud could have unintended consequences for open banking in the UK.

Fluid payments texture

Introducing Payouts: send refunds and settle payments in seconds

We built Payouts to take the pain out of paying people at scale.

Flux2 migration: how we dropped our CPU usage by nearly 40x

The sun is setting on Flux1. With a carefully planned migration to Flux2, we've been able to cut costs and speed up reconciliations.

What are A2A Payments (Account to Account Payments)?

Find out how account to account (A2A) payments work, along with the benefits of A2A payments for both merchants and consumers.

Document with abstract UI elements

UK open banking needs a new home, a new mandate and a new roadmap

We give our views on Charlotte Crosswell’s recommendations to Government on the next steps for open banking in the UK.

Payments people: Flutter Entertainment’s Marc Cregan

How Flutter’s Business Development Manager for payments has built a career by betting on innovation.

Closed padlock icon

Compliance & reg

How are your funds protected at TrueLayer? A guide to safeguarding

As a customer of TrueLayer, any funds you hold with us are legally protected.

Iconography showing a customer, a payment and a bank

5 steps to a high-converting signup with the help of open banking

New research from YouGov reveals what customers want from a signup process in 2023 – we examine how open banking can help.

Signup+ text with plants and foliage growing in the background

The fastest way to onboard customers: introducing Signup+

Streamline onboarding with a single payment.

24 hours to build a moat: inside TrueLayer’s annual hackathon

TrueLayeristas share their hacks and highlights from this year's hackathon.

What is an open banking API and how does it work?

Understand what an api is in the context of open banking and what does open banking api security mean. Read more about open banking apis here.

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