As a payment service provider (PSP), it’s important to stay competitive in an ever-changing space. One way you can stand out from competitors is to offer a white-label experience.

A white-label payment API enables you to offer a flexible, scalable, and branded payment experience, without the need to build infrastructure from scratch. This can help you to strengthen your brand, enhance customer loyalty, and drive higher conversion rates.

But with so many solutions available, choosing the right one can be challenging. This guide will help you navigate the complexities, tackle common challenges, and find the best white-label payment API to align with your business objectives.

We’ll cover:

• What are your options for white-label payment solutions?
• 4 questions to ask when choosing a white-label payment API
• Why choose Yapily as your white-label payment solution
• How Yapily supports Yotta Pay to make payments ethical

Ready to try a white-label open banking solution? Speak to an expert at Yapily.

What are your options for white-label payment solutions?

If you’re a PSP looking to offer your merchants a fully customisable and branded payment experience, there are many payment methods to consider.

Most alternative payment methods don’t offer complete branding control. Some allow partial customisation, while others—like manual bank transfers—offer none at all.

Here’s how different payment methods compare in terms of white labelling:

Let’s compare both to find the best option for your business.

1. Card payments

The conventional option for white-label payments is for a PSP to integrate with card payment gateways, such as those powered by Visa, Mastercard, and American Express. These gateways handle transaction routing and authorisation, which end users initiate by inputting their card details.

Card payment gateways are a popular option for PSPs because they are reliable and work globally—and crucially, because card payments are a familiar process for end users.

However, there are significant downsides to card payments:

• Transactions are expensive. Payment processors and card issuers typically charge merchants fees ranging from 1.5% to over 3% per transaction. American Express, in particular, tends to have higher fees than Visa or Mastercard, sometimes exceeding 3.5%. These costs add up quickly, making card payments a relatively expensive option.

For high-volume businesses, even small percentage fees translate into large sums of money. For example:

* A business processing **£10,000/month** at a 3% fee pays **£300** in fees.
* A business processing **£1,000,000/month** at a 3% fee pays **£30,000** in fees.

With an alternative payment method that cuts out the card network, that’s money that could go back into your business.

• Transactions are not instant. Card payments can take up to three days to settle, which can create cash flow challenges for merchants—especially those operating on tight margins. A delay in funds settlement can mean waiting to pay suppliers, covering payroll, or restocking inventory. For small businesses, this lag can put unnecessary strain on operations, making faster settlement options increasingly valuable.

2. Open banking powered Pay by Bank

The main alternative to card payments is Pay by Bank—a technology powered by open banking.

Pay by Bank has significant advantages over card payments:

Lower cost

One advantage of open banking payments over traditional card payments is lower costs. With Pay by Bank, you can bypass traditional card networks and save significantly on card fees.

Instant payment settlements

Payments made via open banking run on instant payment rails, meaning they are settled instantly. This provides immediate access to funds for merchants improving cash flow and helping reduce financial strain from delayed settlements. Card payments, on the other hand, can take up to three days to clear.

PSPs that can provide instant settlements have a huge advantage, driving satisfaction and loyalty among merchants, improving retention rates and fostering long-term partnerships.

Improved customer experience

Rather than having to enter their card details, customers using Pay by Bank can simply select their bank and then automatically authenticate themselves using secure authentication such as fingerprint or facial recognition through their existing bank app. There’s no need to worry about expired cards or incorrectly entered details, leading to significantly improved conversion rates for Pay by Bank vs traditional card payments.

Stronger fraud prevention

In terms of security, open banking payments utilise SCA through biometric authentication and do not involve sharing card details. This significantly reduces the risk of fraud by virtually eliminating certain types of fraud commonly found in card transactions, such as chargeback fraud or account takeover.

In the rest of this guide, we’ll share what you should look for in a white-label Pay by Bank solution, and why Yapily might be the right choice for you.

Read more: Open banking vs card networks: the future of payments

4 questions to ask when choosing an open banking white-label payment API

Every open banking solution works slightly differently. To find the right platform for you as a PSP, it’s worth considering the following questions:

1. What markets are you operating in? Different open banking platforms operate in specific geographies due to the depth and quality of their connections with local banks. As a PSP, it’s crucial to choose a platform that offers comprehensive and reliable coverage in the regions where you operate — and where you plan to grow. This ensures seamless integration with local banking networks and maximises payment success rates in your target markets.

2. Do you want open banking data services too? To enable payments through open banking, a platform must be authorised as a Payment Initiation Service Provider (PISP). If you also wish to provide data-led services such as account aggregation and payment insights, the platform you choose needs to be authorised as an Account Information Service Provider (AISP). While many platforms specialise in either PISP or AISP services, some offer both.

Choosing a platform with both PIS and AIS capabilities can be a game-changer, offering a seamless solution that supports both payment initiation and valuable insights from transaction data—unlocking opportunities for enhanced user experiences, personalised services, and improved operational efficiency.

3. What kind of payments do you want to support? Open banking solutions offer a variety of payment types, including variable recurring payments (VRPs), single payments, and bulk payments. Each payment type caters to specific business needs—VRPs, for example, are ideal for delivering instant me-to-me payments, while bulk payments streamline high-volume transactions. However, not all platforms support every payment type.

You should carefully evaluate your business requirements and ensure the open banking platform you choose can provide the payment types you need. Selecting the right solution can streamline operations, reduce costs, and future-proof your businesses.

4. Do you work with consumer or business accounts? Most open banking providers support consumer accounts, but not all support open banking for business accounts. This is largely due to the challenges associated with testing API connectivity with real business bank accounts. Unlike personal accounts, business account connectivity is more complex to test, and as a result, many open banking platforms choose to focus solely on personal account integration.

If your business relies on accessing or facilitating payments through business accounts, it’s essential to choose a platform with strong open banking for business connectivity.

Why choose Yapily as your white-label payment solution

Yapily is Europe’s leading open banking payment infrastructure provider, enabling PSPs to integrate and deliver Pay by bank.

Unlike customer-facing platforms, Yapily operates behind the scenes, enabling businesses to seamlessly access and utilise open banking capabilities. This includes providing secure and reliable access to open banking APIs from banks and financial institutions, facilitating Pay by Bank, and offering enriched financial data insights.

By focusing on providing infrastructure, Yapily ensures that PSPs can integrate open banking into their existing services with reliability, scalability, and compliance at the core. Because of this approach, we can offer your merchants a fully customised, white-label experience.

Yapily is fully PCI DSS compliant, and we encrypt all sensitive data. Also, we provide simple integration through SDKs, along with dedicated support from our open banking experts for straightforward onboarding.

Here are three reasons why you should use Yapily as a white-label open banking solution.

1. You’ll get completely flexible white-label payment technology

Our open banking solution integrates with any website or application, enabling you to create complete payment flows within your own branded environment. Unlike many other platforms, Yapily gives you complete ownership of the end-to-end user experience.

(For a fully white-label Pay by Bank experience, you must be a registered PISP. If not, there will be a small mention of Yapily for regulatory reasons).

Yapily empowers you to provide personalised, branded payment journeys that build trust and loyalty while also reducing reliance on expensive card networks.

As an alternative, Yapily also offers a hosted solution, so you can get merchants started with payments quickly while you’re working on customising your fully white-labelled direct integration. This flexibility allows you to offer a Pay by Bank solution while you customise your payment journey.

2. You’ll access extensive coverage across Europe and the UK

One of the key advantages of card payments has long been their global reach. Open banking, while a newer technology, has rapidly expanded its coverage in recent years and is close to being a global payment solution.

At Yapily, we provide some of the most extensive open banking coverage in Europe and the UK. Our platform connects with nearly 2,000 banks and financial institutions across 19 countries, including major markets such as the Netherlands, Germany, France, and the UK. This expansive coverage means we can help you easily scale in new markets, enabling you to operate seamlessly across the continent.

While many open banking platforms only provide connectivity to consumer bank accounts, Yapily gives you comprehensive connectivity to both retail and business banks, enabling you to serve merchants that serve both B2B and B2C use cases. This flexibility allows you to cater to a broader range of clients, giving your business a competitive edge and unlocking opportunities in a growing open banking landscape.

3. You can support a wide range of payment types (as well as data services)

Open banking has unlocked a diverse range of innovative payment methods, far surpassing the traditional limitations of card networks. With open banking, you’re not confined to just one-off payments or fixed recurring payments. Instead, you can offer merchants advanced payment capabilities and access to valuable financial data, transforming how they manage payments and customer interactions.

With Yapily’s open banking infrastructure, you can enable:

• Single immediate and scheduled payments (Pay by Bank), providing flexibility for time-sensitive transactions.
• Bulk payments, which allow merchants to process multiple payments in a single transaction. This reduces transaction costs and streamlines operations, particularly for businesses handling high volumes of payments.
• Variable recurring payments (VRPs)*, automating payments of variable amounts.
• Commercial variable recurring payments (cVRP which gives businesses ongoing payment authorisation from consumers, offering a smarter, more flexible, and cheaper alternative to Direct Debits and card-on-file.

*UK only

Beyond payments, Yapily can also empower merchants to harness the power of financial data enrichment. As one of the few open banking providers authorised as both a PISP and AISP, Yapily gives you access to a wealth of actionable insights. Through account information services (AIS), you can enable merchants to:

• Analyse customer spending patterns for personalised services.
• Streamline credit assessments with access to real-time account data.
• Optimise cash flow management through enriched financial insights, including transaction categorisation.

By leveraging Yapily’s account information services—whether immediately or as part of your long-term strategy—you can gain a significant competitive edge over other PSPs. Combining advanced payment methods with enriched financial data positions your business as a leader in innovation and customer value.

How Yapily supports Yotta Pay to make payments ethical

Yotta Pay is the UK’s first ethical payments processor, committed to reducing the environmental impact of payments by cutting reliance on plastic terminals and payment cards.

By leveraging Yapily’s open banking infrastructure, Yotta Pay now offers seamless open banking payments across all customer touchpoints—online, in-app, and in-store. This means users no longer need payment cards, while merchants benefit from faster, more cost-effective transactions.

With Yapily’s support, Yotta Pay’s merchants enjoy instant payments, eliminating the usual three-day card settlement delays, and avoiding card issuer fees on every transaction.

Since partnering with Yapily, Yotta Pay has enabled merchants to:

• Save up to 90% on operational costs
• Boost online checkout conversions by 200%
• Achieve 100% month-on-month growth in open banking volumes.

Read the full case study: How Yapily and Yotta Pay are making payments ethical

Reach out to Yapily for your white-label payment solution

In this guide, we’ve made the case for using open banking as your white-label payment solution. Compared to conventional card networks, it offers faster settlement times, it’s more affordable for merchants, and it promises a superior user experience.

At Yapily, we offer a white-label API with extensive coverage across Europe. Our solution supports a wide range of payment types and data services, and it’s fully flexible to suit the needs of your merchants.

Want to find out more? Reach out to us at Yapily and speak to an open banking expert.