Yesterday, we won ‘Payments Innovation of the Year’ for our industry-defining Variable Recurring Payments at the 2024 FStech Awards. So many people in TrueLayer made this first-of-its-kind product a reality — this award belongs to us all.

We’ve come a long way since we launched our Variable Recurring Payments (VRP) API in 2022. Last year, we processed our millionth VRP transaction. Three months later, we were up to a million VRP transactions in a single month. And today, we’ve established ourselves as a leader in this space — 90% of VRP transactions come through TrueLayer.

Our progress reflects our dedication to addressing the shortcomings of traditional payment methods such as direct debit and card-on-file. From slow settlement speeds, to high fraud rates, exorbitant fees and convoluted chargeback processes, these challenges not only posed obstacles to efficient cash flow management for businesses, but also acted as barriers, limiting users’ access to necessary services.

Shortly after launching, we partnered with NatWest – the UK’s largest retail bank – to build commercial VRPs that can handle subscription and utility payments amongst others. This was an industry-first development, with NatWest Group becoming the first UK bank to go beyond the CMA requirement for banks to provide VRP in support of “sweeping” – the automatic transfer of money between two accounts belonging to the same person. This has huge implications for the industry, with a traditional bank going beyond the regulatory mandate and embracing a wider approach to deliver new, more efficient and digitally native payment options to its customers, powered by TrueLayer.

Our VRP API is a versatile and adaptable solution with a wide range of applications. The API’s inherent flexibility accommodates both fixed and variable payments, and allows the user to edit terms, dates, amounts and cancel instantly straight from their bank app. New use cases include automating rent collection for landlords, enabling auto-saving for consumers within financial apps like Zopa, as well as loan and credit repayments through partnerships such as with lending platform Lendable.

Our commitment to shape the future of payments for businesses and consumers alike continues. But for now, we celebrate this milestone.

Read our blog post to learn more about how VRPs are improving recurring payments.