By the time you know a payment has failed, two days have passed – and the service is already live. Recovery is delayed, and arrears compound.
A failed payment means manual chasing, repayment plans and escalating arrears. This is expensive to run and hard on customer relationships.
You’ve bought and delivered the energy, water or broadband – but settlement arrives three to five days later, creating a persistent cash flow gap.
What the data shows
We surveyed 489 recurring revenue business leaders (including 50 utilities businesses) about their current payment frustrations.
Why Recurring Pay by Bank is the fix
Recurring Pay by Bank is GoCardless' solution for cVRP. It’s an open banking payment method that enables variable, recurring payments without customers needing to re-authorise every time. Think of it as Direct Debit, rebuilt with the speed and visibility of open banking.
Recurring payments, without the recurring problems
Funds checked upfront
Identify which customers lack funds before you collect. Payment outcome is confirmed in seconds.
Same-day settlement
Close the gap between supply and cash. Funds arrive within one working day, and payments taken before 11am settle the same day.
Automated payment retries
Recover failed payments before arrears even start. No new customer journey, no re-authorisation flow. Fully automatic.
Zero payment gaps
If a customer’s bank doesn’t support Pay by Bank, we automatically route them to Direct Debit. No gaps, no workarounds.
How it works for your customers
Built for how energy, utilities and telecoms businesses actually bill
Variable amounts, automatic retries, actual usage data – everything a sector with changing charges needs, from day one.
One authorisation, variable amounts
Collect actual usage, not estimates. Agree payment limits upfront with no need for your customers to approve each charge.
Bank-level authentication
Customers authorise agreed limits upfront via biometrics or face ID in their banking app. No surprises, no chargeback exposure. Once settled, the money stays.
Seamless bank routing
If a bank doesn’t support Recurring Pay by Bank, we automatically route the customer to Direct Debit. You get 100% coverage from day one.
Fund availability check
Detect insufficient funds before collection, so you can act on a failure before arrears accumulate and customers are surprised.
Automated retries
If a payment fails, retry instantly. There’s no new customer flow or support ticket. Recover the payment before it becomes an arrears case.
The market is ready. Here’s what other businesses think.
96% believe that commercial VRPs would reduce late payments – fewer arrears cases, less chasing.
88% believe that commercial VRPs would improve cash flow – closing the settlement lag.
56% of utilities businesses already know what commercial VRPs are – the highest awareness across industries surveyed
54% of utilities businesses say they want to become early adopters of commercial VRPs
The first live Recurring Pay by Bank transaction in energy
Recurring Pay by Bank is the GoCardless solution for commercial VRPs. Collect faster, recover more, and close the settlement gap today – don't wait for the market to catch up.
