Whenever I come back from my annual trip to ICE, it always prompts me to take stock of how the industry, and its approach to payments is changing.

ICE 2026 in Barcelona was my 4th with TrueLayer and my 16th overall. As someone who has worked in Payments for almost a decade, I’ve been consistently faced with the question as to whether Pay by Bank could realistically offer an alternative to cards. Spoiler alert, it can — and has. And last year, I spent most of my time listening to merchants’ struggles with delivering instant card payouts. The demand for a reliable solution that combines payouts and verification into one solution was clear. So we made it.

At this year’s ICE, the focus of our conversations wasn’t on one product or one solution.

Instead, it was about how every part of the iGaming payments stack needs to work together in one connected ecosystem that turns a cost centre into a growth engine.

But first, why are payments in the iGaming world so often considered a cost centre?

Fragmentation: the iGaming payment challenge lurking in the background

iGaming payment challenges come in many forms. Walking the never ending tightrope of player demands (speed, ease of deposit and payout, trust) and merchant needs (compliance, fraud prevention and increasing revenue), the result can feel like nobody in the player-operator relationship is particularly happy.

I see three particular areas where this relationship breaks, and leads to player churn:

1. Onboarding: Manual onboarding can be slow and prone to human error, and both of those challenges hamper conversion, lowering the ROI of marketing spend. And even when players make it through onboarding, there’s no guarantee of that first-time deposit (FTD) post conversion. This all means that over 50% of potential players will abandon a verification process that takes over 30 minutes.

2. Deposits: While you have to acknowledge that payment methods like Apple Pay mean ongoing deposits can benefit from seamless UX, the operator still often suffers because of chargebacks and fraud that stem from card payments. There’s also the operational overhead of operational inefficiencies that come with card verification and sub-standard payout journeys.

3. Payouts: Card-based payouts are not always reliable and not always instant, and this is another potential break in the player experience chain that might prompt your players to go elsewhere. As one operator we work with put it, “when payouts fail, customers don't remember the hundreds of times they went right, they just remember that one time that it went wrong.”

The problem that connects these is a much bigger issue: fragmentation within your payment journey. iGaming operators are looking for higher conversion, lower costs, better retention and simpler compliance; all of which contribute to the bottom line.

But if the distinct aspects of the player payment experience are disjointed, any attempt to improve one area or one of those fundamental metrics is held back by the other weak links in the chain.

That’s why you need an interconnected iGaming payments stack.

The full-stack approach to iGaming payments

An account to account full-stack payments approach recognises that onboarding, deposits, and withdrawals aren't independent transactions, but rather sequential stages in a continuous player relationship. When these stages are connected through a unified payment network, it creates a flywheel effect where each pillar is further powered by the other pillars, bringing down costs, increasing conversion and reducing player churn across the payment lifecycle.

Here’s how we tackle those three pillars at TrueLayer:

• Bank-verified onboarding eliminates signup friction by pulling identity data directly from a player's bank, completing registration, verification, and first deposit in under 60 seconds. No forms, no document uploads, no manual review. And because the bank account is linked from day one, every subsequent transaction becomes easier. Take a closer look at Signup+

• Instant, bank-based deposits replace costly, fraud-prone card payments with account to account payments that settle immediately. Beyond cutting processing fees, it eliminates chargebacks entirely and gives operators immediate access to settled funds, improving cash flow. Take a closer look at Pay by Bank

• Verified, instant payouts ensure instant, reliable, and fully closed loop payouts directly to a player's bank account, regardless of which payment they use to make a deposit. Take a closer look at Verified Payouts

Each solution solves a problem, but it gets really interesting when you connect them all into something bigger…

The TrueLayer network and the virtuous cycle of iGaming payments

At TrueLayer, there are two ways in which a player can seamlessly enter the full-stack payments experience. The first and obvious way is during the initial funding during the Signup+ onboarding process, where they make their first deposit using Pay by Bank.

The second way, which accelerates the flywheel even further, is by using Verified Payouts to allow players to make instant withdrawals regardless of the payment method they used to make the deposit; then make Pay by Bank the default for their future deposits, adding even more players within the flywheel.

And added on top of all of this is the power of the TrueLayer Network, and the recognition of Pay by Bank it reinforces. With 20 million+ users in-network already primed for Pay by Bank, even players who’ve never used your brand before may well already trust Pay by Bank from previous transactions on other merchant sites.

Existing TrueLayer network users convert at a 20% higher rate than those who’ve never paid with Pay by Bank before.

And that pool of users who’ve never used Pay by Bank before is constantly shrinking, with almost 1 million new users added to the network every month. Cards may have become the ‘default’ payment method in the UK and many other countries in part because everyone knows how it works and what it looks like. In the not too distant future, that will also be true of Pay by Bank.

In short, the merchant benefits of a unified full-stack payments experience include:

• Greater player conversion: Signup+, Verified Payouts, and Pay by Bank maximise impact when adopted together, boosting conversion across onboarding, deposits, and withdrawals while reducing player friction.

• Faster time-to-value: A unified A2A flow enables you to realise benefits sooner: higher conversion, lower payment costs, and fewer operational bottlenecks.

• Higher margins and lower costs: Shifting more payment volume to Pay by Bank reduces processing fees, eliminates chargebacks, and increases instant, low-cost A2A transactions.

• Stronger retention and LTV: Instant payouts and seamless deposits boost player activity, loyalty, and lifetime value while cutting support costs.

• Simpler compliance: Full-stack payments deliver another often-overlooked benefit: they make compliance easier and more robust. When onboarding, deposits, and withdrawals are connected through verified bank accounts, closed-loop compliance becomes automatic. Funds flow in and out through verified channels. Identity is confirmed at the source. Transaction monitoring is simplified because you have a complete view of the player's payment journey.

The way forward for iGaming payments

This full-stack approach goes well beyond just payments. Any aspect of the player experience should be joined up in one holistic system, where they become much more than the sum of their parts. But let’s stick with the most pressing challenge we can help you solve: payments.

We’re already working with operators who are using the full iGaming payments stack to deliver impact across the payment experience. If you want to discuss in more detail how your entire payment experience could be improved by incorporating the TrueLayer full stack, get in touch and speak with one of our iGaming payment experts.