Open Banking: Account-to-account payments to HMRC soar to £2.3bn

The volume of transactions paid to HMRC was 47 per cent higher than in 2022, with 869,000 payments made by self-assessment taxpayers in January.

The first month of the year in the UK sees a rush for self-assessment taxpayers, settling their bills before the end of January deadline. 

Whether they know it or not, more and more people are using open banking’s ‘Pay-by-Bank’ option.

Open banking payments provider Ecospend processed £2.3bn of account-to-account payments to HMRC in 2023, a 64 per cent jump from the same period last year.

In the 48 hours ahead of the Self Assessment tax deadline customers paid almost £600m in tax via Ecospend. 

The volume of transactions paid to HMRC in 2023 was 47 per cent higher than in 2022, with 869,000 payments made by self-assessment taxpayers in January.

Ecospend, founded in 2017, won a contract at the start of 2023 with HMRC to process payments across its 43 different tax regimes.

This followed HMRC launching an app In February last year that used Ecospend’s technology.

This works by payments made online sent directly from a taxpayer’s bank account, using validated HMRC details. Ecospend says this increases speed, and reduces the risk of customer error and cost savings as well as potentially limiting fraud.

“The rapid adoption of our Open Banking payment solution by HMRC’s customers 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, chief commercial officer of Ecospend.

“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.”