Open Banking, also known as Pay by Bank, in the UK processed 351 million payments in 2025, a 57% year-on-year increase, with more than 16.5 million active users, according to Open Banking Limited.The acquisition gives Access PaySuite full ownership of its core payment infrastructure and, with it, the ability to combine payment initiation with real-time account data in ways that go beyond transaction processing.
The completed rail delivers measurable operational benefits: lower acceptance costs, faster settlement, and richer reconciliation data, alongside the ability to offer payments, financial services, and intelligence from a single platform.
In practice, that means organisations can move from reactive to informed. For arrears management, blending payment capability with live financial data allows housing associations to identify genuine hardship early, tailor recovery approaches to individual circumstances, and offer affordable repayment options at the point of contact. For affordability assessment, it replaces self-reported figures with verified account data at the point of application. For hardship planning, it supports earlier intervention before accounts deteriorate.
Open Banking will be embedded natively across Access PaySuite's platforms alongside its existing card and Direct Debit capabilities. The acquisition also enables Variable Recurring Payments (VRP), a real-time alternative to Direct Debit that gives payers greater control over authorisation and businesses faster, more flexible collection.
Giulio Montemagno, Managing Director of Access PaySuite, said:"This acquisition isn't about adding a payment method. It's about what we build with it. We're embedding Open Banking natively across our platforms, and the bigger opportunity is blending payments with financial intelligence to tackle genuinely hard problems. That's where payments stops being a utility and starts driving real outcomes — more revenue recovered, lower cost to serve, and better financial lives for the people on the other end of every transaction.
"Underpinning this is Access PaySuite's pursuit of FCA permissions for Payment Initiation and Account Information Services, not just regulatory milestones, but what makes the next generation of outcomes possible. Together, they open an entirely new class of solution: intelligence embedded directly at the point of need. The UK's National Payments Vision puts Open Banking at the centre of how payments should evolve. Access PaySuite intends to be at the front of that wave."
