TrueLayer

TrueLayer is a London open banking company founded in 2016. Rather than cards, it moves money directly between bank accounts: the shopper picks their bank, approves the payment in the banking app, and the funds travel over Faster Payments in the UK or SEPA (instant where the bank supports it) in Europe. TrueLayer Ltd is authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority under both the payment services and e-money rules, firm reference 901096.

Beyond pay-ins it handles payouts, closed-loop refunds back to the paying account, verified payouts that check the account holder's name, and variable recurring payments for sweeping between a customer's own accounts. Signup+ pre-fills customer details from bank data, and a separate data product reads account information with the user's consent. Merchants can integrate with an API, a hosted payment page, embedded web components or mobile SDKs. Since 2023 TrueLayer has also appeared as a method inside Stripe's Payment Element.

Coverage is strongest in the UK. Its hosted payment page currently serves the UK, Ireland, Spain, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Lithuania, and the wider platform has added countries such as Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Italy and Portugal. Pricing is agreed per contract and not published.

Pay by bank removes card chargebacks and card scheme fees, which is why betting firms, investment platforms, crypto exchanges and utilities were early users. The trade-offs: shoppers must be comfortable approving payments in their banking app, refunds have their own flow, and outside the UK, bank coverage and instant settlement vary by market.