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:

PSR VRP consultation

Recurring payments

Why 2025 is key for Pay by Bank and VRP: everything merchants need to know

Find out everything you need to know about VRP in 2025 and what recent updates could mean for your business.

Pay by bank phone

TrueLayer hits 10 million consumers, acquiring a new user every 3 seconds

TrueLayer processes more than 40% of all Pay by Bank payments in the UK, making it the largest Pay by Bank network in the UK.

Signup+ text with plants and foliage growing in the background

Merchant data confirms TrueLayer’s Signup+ gets consumers “playing in 60 seconds”

TrueLayer reveals performance data and trends from key UK gaming clients that showcase the performance of Signup+.

TrueLayer x BR-DGE

BR-DGE x TrueLayer: enhancing enterprise payments with Pay by Bank

By adding TrueLayer to its growing ecosystem, BR-DGE will offer its merchants a payment method that sees over 20 million payments a month in the UK alone.

2025 predictions

Your 'ins and outs' list for ecommerce payments in 2025

Start your year right with the payment strategies that centre your customers, help you disrupt the market and save on costs all at the same time.

3 tipping points for change within the ecommerce payment experience

Change at the checkout is here, and 2025 will only accelerate this new state-of-play. But how did we get here? Dive into three reasons why.

Cart abandonment

How to reduce ecommerce cart abandonment

Transform cart abandonment into completed purchases and learn key tactics for checkout optimisation.

dev sec ops shared responsibility

Devising a delegated alerts model for SecOps

Learn how the TrueLayer SecOps team introduced a delegated alerts mode to speed up responses to alerts, while minimising mental overload and burnout.

session-conversion-header

Session conversion: the payment metric you should be paying attention to, but probably aren’t

What exactly is session conversion, and why should payment leaders be using it?

National Payment Vision

Government boosts Pay by Bank with National Payments Vision

The Government has published its long-awaited National Payments Vision? What does it mean for account to account payments and Pay by bank?

Two debit cards

Credit and debit card fees and how to reduce them

How much do businesses get charged for debit card transactions? Do you have to pay? Learn more about debit and credit card fees for merchants here.

What are continuous payment authorities (CPAs)?

Find out everything you need to know about continuous payment authorities, including how they work, advantages and disadvantages, and available alternatives.

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