GoCardless, a global leader in direct bank payments, has launched GoCardless Embed, a new integration for third party payment providers to access its global bank payment network and reap the benefits of bank-to-bank payments.

GoCardless Embed, which comes white labelled as standard, allows payment providers to integrate GoCardless’ global bank payment network straight into their platform through a single, simple API that provides access to:

• bank payment schemes in the UK, Eurozone and US, with more to come in the near future
• end-to-end payment processing capabilities for bank-to-bank payments including reconciliation, mandate management, reporting and refunds
• open banking-powered features, including instant one-off and recurring payments in the UK and account verification and fraud prevention across the three markets

GoCardless Embed allows providers to tap into the burgeoning account-to-account market, valued at around USD 225 trillion in transaction volumes worldwide*, and expand their total addressable market to new verticals and use cases where bank payments are preferred.

It's a fast and easy way for third party payment providers to increase revenue through expanding the range of payment methods they offer, keeping their merchants in-platform. GoCardless Embed also slots seamlessly into their existing solution, meaning payment providers retain complete control over the customer experience.

By adopting GoCardless Embed, they also benefit from increased efficiency, tapping into a worldwide network that took years to build in just a matter of weeks. The integration will give them an end-to-end bank payment solution that provides merchants and their payers all the benefits of bank payments, without any of the complexity traditionally associated with introducing and managing the payment method.

Hiroki Takeuchi, co-founder and CEO of GoCardless said, “We’ve spent the past decade optimising bank payments and bringing them into the digital age. Our greatest achievement is building a global bank payment network, connecting disparate payment schemes into one interoperable network -- a challenge that our peers and competitors had previously considered insurmountable. Now, for the first time, we’ve created a product to open up access to our unique network and we’re excited by the positive reactions so far."

Market context

Through GoCardless Embed, payment providers can meet growing merchant demand for bank payments. Many types of businesses have already realised a range of benefits powered by payments that are faster, cheaper and more secure:

• Smart money app Plum noted that “account-to-account payments are more cost-effective and reliable than cards, which are expensive to process and prone to fail when cards expire or get cancelled.”

• Similarly, consumer lending firm Plend reported that bank-to-bank payments have saved them upwards of £50,000 and helped them eliminate the need for a full-time financial operations employee at this stage of growth, “which is pretty unheard of for a lending start-up”.

Payment providers can also use GoCardless Embed to align with changing payer preferences.

• According to a global study by YouGov for GoCardless, when it comes to paying invoices, the top method chosen by consumers globally was bank payments (25%), followed by credit card (21%) and debit cards (18%).  
• Over half (54%) of all business payers also cited bank payments as their most preferred method when making invoice payments.

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