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

Debunking a payment myth: why open banking is ready for mainstream

Adoption of open banking payments is skyrocketing, yet some say they're not ready to go mainstream.

money moving in and out of portals

What are instant payments & what are the benefits?

Understand what instant payments are and learn about how they work in the UK & EU, as well as the benefits for your business. Find out more here.

hand interacting with ui elements

The fast track to open finance

3 strategies to accelerate open finance in the UK

TrueTalk with Ben Foster

Meet Ben — hacker, foodie, DIY enthusiast, amateur logger and TrueLayer’s new VP of Engineering.

Monzo and TrueLayer team up to protect vulnerable customers

We’re running a joint pilot to create an open banking powered gambling block.

How we built PayDirect

Engineering a new open banking based payment method.

Graph going upwards

The GameStop short squeeze: why open banking matters in trading

How open banking gave platforms like Freetrade and Revolut the advantage

Introducing PayDirect

Today we launch our new open banking payment solution to replace cards online

Background image

UX/UI guides: how to optimise your open banking user journey

Give your users a better in-app experience by following these simple implementation techniques.

Background image

Engineering at TrueLayer: the wabi-sabi way

Our engineering principles guide us as we scale

Background image

Is 2021 the end of cards?

It’s time to reflect on the year in open banking and make one prediction for 2021.

UI from an investment app showing an instant bank payment

How to build a better investor experience – new YouGov data

The payment innovations that wealthtech users want

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