NatWest has become the first UK bank to conduct a live transaction using Open Banking-initiated Variable Recurring Payments.
VRPs allow customers to connect authorised payments providers to their bank account so that they can make payments on the customer’s behalf within agreed parameters. This is a change to the current Open Banking status quo where TPPs can only initiate single immediate payments and customers have to authenticate each payment separately.
Initially scheduled for roll out in January, the Competition and Markets Authority was forced to push back the deadline by six months after acknowledging that the UK's major banks did not have a realistic chance of meeting the target date.
Working with Open Banking infrastrucutre provider TrueLayer, NatWest has delivered its VRP API ahead of schedule and tested the transactions in a live environment.
Daniel Globerson, head of bank of APIs at NatWest Group comments: “VRP is ground-breaking innovation that has huge potential to benefit consumers and businesses. It demonstrates the value of industry collaboration, which is crucial if Open Banking is going to evolve into Open Finance.”