Cardstream and Mastercard partner to advance open banking payments in the UK

Cardstream, a leading fintech, has partnered with Mastercard to enhance its white-label Payment Facilitation-as-a-Service (PFaaS) platform and enable its customers to offer open banking payments to merchants and retailers across the UK.

With this innovation, acquirers, payment facilitators, and payment channels using Cardstream will be able to offer their merchant customers the option to accept open banking payments alongside other forms of payments such as debit and credit cards.

The new solution expands payment choice for businesses and consumers in the UK, supporting single immediate payments (SIP) and preparing for commercial variable recurring payments  – a new payment method that will allow people to pay for recurrent bills directly from their bank account –  as they expectedly roll out across Europe, including in the UK, by late 2025. 

Built on Mastercard’s secure Open Banking technology, the platform ensures seamless bank connectivity and a smooth consumer transaction experience. Meanwhile, Cardstream’s proven PFaaS and gateway technology efficiently processes, collects, and disburses open banking transactions to merchants.

Adam Sharpe, CEO of Cardstream, said: “There’s strong demand for open banking payments as a secure and convenient way to pay alongside cards. We’ve long collaborated with Mastercard on innovations like network tokenization and Click to Pay, and we’re excited to offer a turnkey solution that lets payment providers launch branded Open Banking Merchant Services quickly.”

Valerie Nowak, Executive Vice President, Head of Open Banking, APEMEA at Mastercard, added: “The open banking market is set for significant growth in Europe. Our commitment is to foster an innovative, accessible, and secure payments ecosystem. By empowering Cardstream, we can support both issuing and acquiring customers with a comprehensive open banking solution and thereby enhance payment choice for their customers.”