Brite Payments takes its 27-market Pay by Bank network into the UK on an FCA e-money licence

Stockholm-based Brite Payments launched Pay by Bank in the United Kingdom after securing an Electronic Money Institution licence from the Financial Conduct Authority, and began a phased roll-out of its account-to-account product for UK merchants and consumers. One API integration gives a UK merchant domestic Pay by Bank acceptance plus the company's existing network of more than 3,800 banks across 27 European markets.

Brite has run the business since 2019 and supports instant payments and payouts. The launch was published alongside a survey of 2,000 UK adults in which 76 percent said they were familiar with Pay by Bank, 47 percent reported checkout frustration online, and 58 percent said they would pick a UK or European provider over an overseas one. Brite did not disclose the timeline or the scope of the phased roll-out.

The UK is the most mature open banking market in Europe with more than 15 million users, and it is being entered from the Nordics rather than built into: Brite arrives with 27 markets already connected, which turns a domestic UK Pay by Bank decision into a cross-border one for any merchant that also sells into the EU. That is the competitive shape of A2A acceptance in Europe now - the lever is not the domestic rail, which every UK provider already has, but the single contract that covers the continent, and it puts Brite against the incumbent UK open-banking PSPs on breadth rather than price.

The own-licence route also matters: an FCA EMI authorisation means Brite is not renting UK access through a partner and can be held to its own conduct obligations.

Which UK merchants Brite names first and when the phased roll-out opens generally, whether UK acquirers or PSPs resell the network rather than compete with it, and whether the other pan-European A2A providers answer with UK licences of their own.

• thepaypers.com
• Financial IT (press release in full)