Open banking refunds arrive with TrueLayer’s instant Payouts

Refunds in seconds rather than days sounds far-fetched—we’ve all grown accustomed to waiting up to five days for a merchant to reverse a payment—but it’s quickly becoming a reality thanks to open banking payments.

Today TrueLayer is formally announcing its Payouts feature which does exactly that, instant refunds and payouts.

Using open banking TrueLayer is circumventing the slow Bacs payment network and helping businesses accelerate due diligence that would usually be required, like verifying a customers payment details and identity.

The feature actually already went live last week, with online car seller Cazoo enabling it in order to offer instant payouts to customers selling their cars on the platform.

“In 2021 it shouldn’t take days, sometimes over a week, to receive a payment.” said Murtaza Bootwala, head of payments at TrueLayer.

“We built Payouts to take the pain out of these transactions and enable firms to create a compelling value proposition for their entire customer base—withdraw your funds or receive refunds instantly.”

Like open banking payments, the refund or withdrawal process simply redirects customers to their banking app (or website) so that they can authenticate the refund, and then be passed back to the merchant—no account details or form filling needed.

“By verifying the account details before paying out, you can say goodbye to the days of failed or lost payments, and reduce the strain on customer support,” added Bootwala.

TrueLayer expects that these open banking refunds and payouts will be particularly useful for eCommerce and marketplaces, where refunds are common, as well as online gambling and trading, where customers often want quick payouts.