TrueLayer launches Bank on File in the UK with Trading 212, IG Group, InvestEngine and ELHA

TrueLayer has launched Bank on File, an account-to-account (A2A) recurring payment product for the UK, live with four commercial partners from day one. For high-risk and subscription-heavy businesses, the point is simple: recurring payments can now run directly from bank accounts instead of leaning on cards, which means a different failure profile and a different discussion with PSPs and acquirers.

1. TrueLayer introduced Bank on File on stage at Money20/20 Europe in Amsterdam, calling it the UK’s first open banking-powered recurring payment solution. The service lets UK consumers make flexible, recurring payments directly from their bank accounts.
2. The launch partners already live on the system are Trading 212, IG Group, InvestEngine, and the East Lothian Housing Association (ELHA). That mix matters because it shows the product is not being positioned as a niche utility for one vertical; it is being used by investment platforms and a housing association from the outset.
3. The deployment was enabled by the activation of the UK Payments Initiative (UKPI), described here as a collaborative framework involving the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and more than 30 major UK banks and financial technology institutions. In practice, the point of UKPI is to provide a standard commercial rulebook for variable recurring payments (VRP), so participating firms do not have to wait for a full legislative or regulatory cycle before launching bank-to-bank recurring payments.
4. TrueLayer is pairing this move with a broader push into credit. Last week it acquired In3, a buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) provider, which puts more of its strategy around payments and credit rails in one place while it positions European bank-to-bank infrastructure against US card networks.
5. TrueLayer and the FCA cite the scale of the recurring-billing problem in the UK: 7.4 million consumers feel significantly burdened by ongoing bills and credit commitments, 5.5 million have missed at least one essential payment over the last six months, card payment failure rates on standard subscription billing cycles regularly run between 5 per cent and 10 per cent, and failed transactions cost subscription-based enterprises an estimated 9 per cent of total annual revenue.

For PSPs, acquirers, and merchants in subscriptions, investment, and other recurring-payment verticals, the operational appeal is obvious: Bank on File removes card expiry, card number theft risk, and the merchant-side fraud burden that comes with card-based recurring billing. The commercial question now is how quickly bank-to-bank recurring payments can move from “interesting alternative rail” to an actual default option in the UK stack.