What Brexit means for GoCardless – and our customers

While the dust is yet to settle on Brexit negotiations, GoCardless is prepared for every outcome.

Whatever happens with Brexit, we'll continue to be able to process payments for businesses based in the EU:

• If the UK reaches an agreement with the EU that includes a transition period, GoCardless will continue to rely on our FCA licence to process payments across the European Economic Area (EEA), under financial services passporting rules.

• In the event of a hard Brexit or ‘no deal’, we plan to use our French legal entity to serve customers based in the EEA.

We don’t envisage any negative impact on service and we’re working hard to ensure there’s as little disruption as possible for our customers, their customers, and our partners.

As a result of Brexit, we may need to make small amendments to our contracts, for example making it clear which GoCardless entity is providing you with regulated services. If this is needed, we’ll be in touch with those affected in advance.

What does this mean for SEPA users in the UK?

GoCardless provides its customers with the ability to collect payments from the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA), through SEPA Direct Debit scheme.

SEPA currently includes the 28 EU member states, and a number of non-EU countries and territories like Norway.

On 7 March, the European Payments Council (EPC) ruled that the UK can remain in the bloc’s Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA), regardless of the outcome of Brexit.

For GoCardless customers who use the SEPA scheme, this means no change to service – we’ll continue to process SEPA payments for you as usual.

Our commitment to Europe – and beyond

As our CEO, Hiroki, outlined in this blog in 2016, Brexit hasn’t changed our strategy; it has accelerated it.

We are delivering on our mission to build a global network for bank to bank payments, so that businesses based anywhere can collect payments from anywhere, and in any currency.

So far this year, we’ve opened new offices in Paris and Melbourne, integrated with Direct Debit schemes in Denmark, Australia and New Zealand, and extended our partnership with business software Xero internationally.

Businesses in 30 countries as far afield as Canada and New Zealand can now access Direct Debit through GoCardless, using any of our 6 Direct Debit schemes (covering 28 countries).

Behind the scenes, we’re proud to count more than 35 different nationalities in the GoCardless team. Whatever Brexit brings, we’ll continue to build a diverse, international team to deliver on our global mission.