GoCardless and Jellyfish Energy Complete UK’s First Commercial Recurring Pay by Bank Transaction

Quick Summary

GoCardless and Jellyfish Energy have successfully completed the UK's first commercial recurring Pay by Bank transaction. This milestone marks the transition of open banking from simple 'sweeping' to full commercial utility, offering businesses faster settlement, lower fees, and improved cash flow predictability compared to traditional card payments.

How Does Recurring Pay by Bank Benefit Modern Businesses?

Recurring Pay by Bank solves the long-standing issue of high transaction fees and slow settlement times associated with legacy card networks. By utilizing account-to-account payments, merchants like Jellyfish Energy can achieve instant fund settlement and a significant reduction in payment fraud. This technology allows businesses to move away from rigid billing cycles and offer flexible payment options that integrate directly with customer rewards platforms.

• Lower transaction fees compared to traditional credit and debit cards.
• Reduced payment failures through direct bank-to-bank connectivity.
• Enhanced cash flow predictability for SMEs and large enterprises alike.

What Results Has This Open Banking Integration Delivered?

The partnership leverages GoCardless’s extensive data, covering 70% of UK payers over the last 15 years, to provide a frictionless checkout experience. The system boasts 99.5% uptime, ensuring that mission-critical utility payments are processed without interruption. For the consumer, it provides total payment transparency, allowing them to manage or cancel authorizations directly within their own banking app, which builds long-term customer trust.

• 100% payer coverage via intelligent routing to Direct Debit when needed.
• Instant settlement of funds to improve working capital.
• Automated data entry using 'bank guess' features to speed up onboarding.

"At Jellyfish, we've built our entire business model around rewarding reliable payment behavior and giving customers real transparency and control over their energy costs. Recurring Pay by Bank is the next natural stage of that philosophy, giving our business customers flexibility and payment reliability that ultimately enables us to offer better rates." said Aidon Hudson, CEO of Jellyfish Energy.

FF NEWS TAKE:

This announcement absolutely moves the needle for the UK fintech ecosystem. While recurring Pay by Bank (Variable Recurring Payments) has been discussed for years, this live commercial execution proves it is ready for prime time. By moving beyond 'sweeping' between a user's own accounts into the merchant-payment space, GoCardless is effectively challenging the dominance of card schemes. This is a massive win for merchant margins and consumer autonomy.