The Credit Thing has implemented a recurring payments API from TrueLayer and made the first consumer variable recurring payments (VRP) transactions in the UK.
VRPs are an additional open banking API that the nine largest UK banks have been instructed to build by the Competition and Markets Authority. They support third party providers to initiate a series of payments for a customer of variable amounts and at variable intervals. With open banking in the UK having been popular for a while, VRPs have emerged as a lively sector for fintech firms to battle for supremacy and perhaps make more money.
Colin Hollingsbee, CIO for The Credit Thing, comments: “Could this be the beginning of the end for Direct Debits? VRP is a real game changer.”
Kirill Zotin, CTO for The Credit Thing, adds: “VRP integration may sound complex, but with the TrueLayer partnership it was seamless. It took just a few weeks from our first conversation to live payments.”
According to fintech unicorn TrueLayer, it is the first open banking provider to offer a single API that enables businesses to connect to select UK banks, including HSBC, to take recurring payments as a replacement for direct debit and card-on-file payments.
Last month, TrueLayer said its VRP API was available for customers to use for both sweeping and non-sweeping use cases. This follows on from December 2021 when NatWest made the industry’s first open banking VRP with the help of TrueLayer.
In terms of this latest development, TrueLayer explains that a single payment approval removes the need to re-authenticate or re-authorise transactions, through a payment consent that is tied to a bank account and doesn’t expire until it’s revoked by them. Unlike both direct debit and card-on-file, recurring payments with TrueLayer provide The Credit Thing with “instant access to the funds deposited”.
The Credit Thing was founded in 2018 and targets the 15 million people in the UK who have “thin credit histories”. It uses open banking to link bank accounts during the application process, and consumers whose credit histories look thin or non-existent can prove their creditworthiness.
It’s been a busy month for TrueLayer. It picked up a deal with B2B payments solutions provider Monoova in Australia and with fintech ‘pop’ star Lemonade Finance.
Prior to that, TrueLayer bagged fintech deals with MogoPlus and Douugh in Australia; ETX Capital in London; and with investment platform Tillit.
In other open banking news this month, London-based Yapily says it has signed an agreement with credit bureau company SCHUFA to buy German fintech firm finAPI.
