HMRC’s Ecospend Open Banking Payments Reach £10.5bn

With £123m through the HMRC app alone. Since March 2021, when open banking payments became an option for making payments. The UK’s HM Revenue & Customs and its open banking partner Ecospend have processed more than £10.5bn.

In January 2022, the total was only £2.5bn, so this number shows how quickly things have changed in the last year.

The HMRC’s mobile app will feature open banking payments in February 2022, contributing to the surge. This new way of paying will bring in £123 million just on the app.

“The rapid adoption of our Open Banking payment solution through the HMRC app is hard evidence that account-to-account payments are the best way to meet consumers’ expectations for a fast and simple payment journey,” said James Hickman, Ecospend’s chief commercial officer.

“We hope that the success of our work with HMRC is a clear demonstration of the benefits that Open Banking can provide to the public sector, businesses and consumers alike and look forward to working with other Government departments, as well as businesses from a range of industries to support them with our innovative payment solution.”

Open banking payments were first only available for people paying their self-assessment tax returns. HMRC expanded this to 24 tax systems, including PAYE, corporate tax, and VAT, in August 2022.

Ecospend claimed that open banking payments had saved HMRC £500,000 in interchange fees and spared consumers hours of annoyance from payments that failed due to incorrect sort codes and account details.

Ecospend had a busy year as well. In May 2022, Swedish payments company Trustly bought Ecospend as part of its move into open banking payments.

In September 2020, HMRC put out a £3 million bid for an open banking payments provider. Ecospend won the bid in February 2021.