Who TrueLayer is
TrueLayer is an open banking payments company founded in London in 2016. Through one API across the UK and Europe, businesses take payments directly from a customer's bank account, send payouts and refunds, and read account data with the customer's consent.
It is authorised by the UK's Financial Conduct Authority under the payment services and e-money regulations, and its Irish company is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland. Payments can settle into a TrueLayer merchant account, from which refunds and payouts are sent. Online retailers, travel companies, financial services firms and crypto platforms use it, which is why it is one of the providers our checkout connects to for bank payments.
What it does in your platform
Accounts & IBANs
Connects your customers' accounts at other banks. With their consent, TrueLayer's Data API shares the account holder's name, balances and transactions, and a pay-by-bank payment tops up their account in your app from there.
Checkout
Adds pay by bank to the checkout. The buyer approves the payment in their banking app, the money settles into a TrueLayer merchant account, and refunds go back from there.
How the connection works
One connector talks to TrueLayer's Payments API. Every request is signed with a key only the platform holds, the buyer only sees TrueLayer's payment screens, and every status change comes back as a signed webhook.
A buyer pays by bank
At the checkout. The module creates a payment in TrueLayer for the amount, paying into the merchant account.
The buyer picks their bank
TrueLayer's payment screen opens, as a hosted page or through its SDKs, and the buyer chooses their bank and is sent to it.
The bank asks for approval
The buyer approves the payment in their banking app or online banking, then comes back to the checkout.
The payment is executed
The bank sends the money, and TrueLayer reports payment_executed by webhook, with a Tl-Signature header the module verifies.
It settles
When the money reaches the merchant account, payment_settled follows, the order is marked paid and the payment shows in the backoffice. A failure arrives as payment_failed, with its reason.
Next to other providers
TrueLayer can run next to other bank payment providers in the checkout, with bank payments routed between them, for example by country, while merchants keep the same integration.
The order statuses and the records belong to the module, not to TrueLayer. Adding Tink, Yapily or a local method such as iDEAL next to it, or moving away later, changes a connector, not your merchants' integration.
When TrueLayer fits best
A strong fit when
- You take payments from customers in the UK and across Europe.
- You want bank payments, refunds and payouts through one provider.
- You want the money to settle into a merchant account you can pay out from.
Also worth a look
- A provider with deeper coverage in one market, routed next to TrueLayer there.
- A local method such as iDEAL, Bancontact or BLIK where buyers expect it.
How we get you live
The contract
We help you get your TrueLayer account and contract in place, for the markets you sell in.
The payment set-up
We set up the merchant accounts, the screens your buyers see and the refund and payout rules with you.
The keys
The signing key and the client credentials stay in your platform's secrets, so every request is signed by you, and every webhook's signature is checked against TrueLayer's public keys.
A full test run
The whole flow runs in TrueLayer's sandbox with its mock banks, from payment to settlement webhook, before your first real buyer.
