Ecospend retains Open Banking contract with HMRC

Open Banking payments provider Ecospend has retained its contract with HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC), meaning it will continue to deliver Open Banking solutions to enhance parts of HMRC’s payment processes.

The original contract was won by Ecospend in 2021, prior to its acquisition by Trustly in 2022.

Since then, it has become the single biggest use case for Open Banking payments in the UK by volume, with £30 billion of tax payments processed in that time.

As part of the re-awarded contract, Ecospend will continue to provide its account-to-account payment services which allow HMRC to process payments across more than 40 tax regimes, including Self-Assessment, PAYE, Corporation Tax and VAT.

Johan Tjärnberg, group chief executive officer of Trustly, said: “We’re thrilled that we have been awarded a new contract to provide Open Banking services to HMRC.

“We believe this is one of the most innovative relationships to embed financial technology within a government. Our technology will allow HMRC to continue to offer a simple, fast, and secure payment experience.”

By deploying Ecospend’s Open Banking payments solutions, HMRC is able to reduce costs, improve usability for taxpayers, decrease instances of human error and reduce the need for suspense accounts for incoming payments.

Ecospend’s James Hickman

“We are excited to continue our excellent working relationship with HMRC and build on the success of the last three years,” James Hickman, chief commercial officer at Ecospend, which is a Trustly company, added.

“Our collaboration to date is the industry standard for Open Banking and HMRC has led the industry in proving its value at scale. Further adoption of Open Banking across government will help speed up and simplify payments, prevent fraud, and reduce costs to the public sector.”

In January, Ecospend became the first Open Banking provider to be accepted onto the Crown Commercial Services’ new Open Banking Dynamic Purchasing System, so that public sector bodies can get access to its services and solutions.

Last month, Ecospend has recently been awarded a contract by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) in the UK to supply an Open Banking proof of concept (PoC) for Universal Credit applications.

Ecospend has been tasked with delivering a PoC in line with DWP’s Universal Credit Project requirements.