Recurring Pay by Bank Hits a Major Milestone: GoCardless and Jellyfish Energy Complete First Recurring Pay by Bank Transaction

WHY THIS MATTERS: The successful processing of the first live recurring Pay by Bank transaction signals a critical maturity point for the UK’s Open Banking ecosystem. For years, the vision for modern payment infrastructure has been constrained by the limitations of initial Variable Recurring Payment (VRP) mandates, which focused primarily on ‘sweeping’ cash between accounts. This move demonstrates that the underlying technology is now ready to support complex, high-volume subscription and utility models. By establishing a reliable framework that includes smart fallbacks like intelligent routing, providers are tackling the key adoption barrier: trust and guaranteed coverage. Merchants in sectors like energy and telecoms, which depend on predictable revenue streams, can now confidently leverage Account-to-Account (A2A) payments to reduce operational costs, minimize fraud, and deliver the instant payment experience consumers now expect. This is the moment where the alternative payment rail becomes an infrastructural standard.

Bank payment company GoCardless has today announced the successful completion of the first recurring Pay by Bank transaction, processed on behalf of Jellyfish Energy, the fast-growing business energy supplier. This landmark transaction was completed as part of a ‘live testing’ exercise with banks, proving the viability of open banking payments beyond the sweeping functionality introduced in 2022.  

Jellyfish Energy were keen to be an early adopter of recurring Pay by Bank, recognising their vital role in delivering better cash flow predictability and payment reliability. It plans to use recurring Pay by Bank to empower business customers with flexible payment options that integrate seamlessly with its rewards-based platform, delivering on the company’s commitment to ‘redefine transparency in the energy industry through innovative technology.’

By selecting GoCardless, Jellyfish Energy benefits from a high-performance Pay by Bank solution built on 15 years of account-to-account payment expertise — making adoption viable and highly effective today. Key features include:

• Full payer coverage from day one through ‘intelligent routing’ that automatically shifts payers to Direct Debit if open banking isn’t available.
• A ‘bank guess’ feature: the GoCardless platform has seen 70% of UK payers over the past 15 years. This data is leveraged to auto-fill payment details and create a smoother checkout experience.
• 99.5% uptime, ensuring reliable service — a critical factor for early adopters and a common concern across the industry.

Bringing the future of payments to life

Recurring Pay by Bank will deliver on open banking’s long-held promise to bring more choice and competition to UK payments, with immediate benefits for both sides of the checkout:

• For Merchants: Lower transaction fees compared to cards, instant settlement of funds, and a reduction in payment failures and fraud.
• For Consumers: A seamless payment experience that offers more control and transparency. Payers can easily view, manage, and cancel payment authorisations within their banking app, putting them firmly in control.

An open banking pioneer

GoCardless has been at the forefront of open banking since processing the UK’s first live Variable Recurring Payment transaction in a sandbox environment in 2019. More recently, the fintech joined the approved list of open banking suppliers for central and local government, and became a founding member of the UK Payments Initiative (UKPI), an industry-wide scheme committed to scaling Pay by Bank. More than 37,000 organisations have used GoCardless for open banking payments, tapping into the fintech’s broader account-to-account offering. 

Pat Phelan, Chief Revenue Officer at GoCardless, said: “We’re thrilled to process the first live recurring Pay by Bank transaction with Jellyfish Energy, a major milestone as the industry prepares for the launch of this next-gen payment method. Recurring Pay by Bank offers a unique blend of speed, security and ease, helping forward-looking businesses like Jellyfish Energy unlock new revenue models, greater efficiency and best-in-class customer relationships. 

“By leaning on our 15 years of experience in account-to-account payments, we can bring this technology to market with the proven reliability that businesses need. This will help them adopt with total confidence, knowing their payment operations won’t miss a beat.”

Aidon Hudson, CEO of Jellyfish Energy, said: “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. 

“Our industry is often seen as traditional and inflexible, which is why we’re excited to be at the forefront of bringing open banking payment solutions to the business energy sector, where they can deliver much-needed value to SMEs managing cashflow.”

FF NEWS TAKE: This is more than a technical first; it’s the operational validation needed for widespread commercial acceptance of VRPs beyond simple money movement. The combination of instant settlement for merchants and enhanced control for consumers makes this a powerful challenger to traditional Direct Debit. We anticipate a rapid acceleration of adoption across other subscription and utility verticals. The key indicator to watch next will be how quickly other payment providers build reliable coverage layers—like GoCardless’s intelligent routing—to ensure the consumer experience remains seamless, regardless of the payer’s bank readiness.