Yaspa, an award-winning fintech specialising in instant payments and identity services, has officially released the findings of its second annual Yaspa Index. The 2026 report uncovers a stark paradox currently playing out within the UK payments sector. While open banking-powered transactions experienced a robust 53 per cent year-on-year growth throughout 2025, everyday consumers are actually becoming less familiar with the terminology driving this shift.
Conducted in partnership with YouGov, the comprehensive survey of 2,157 UK adults found that only 38 per cent of respondents are currently familiar with the phrase ‘Pay by Bank’. This represents a sharp drop from the 55 per cent awareness recorded in the previous year.
According to the report, this steep decline highlights a growing industry-wide challenge regarding fragmented terminology. Because merchants and payment providers interchangeably use phrases such as “instant bank transfer,” “account-to-account,” and “open banking,” consumers are left confused rather than empowered at the checkout screen. Despite the increased usage of the underlying technology, shoppers simply aren’t associating their seamless payment experiences with a single, repeatable term. By stark contrast, traditional legacy terms like BACS remain highly recognised by 77 per cent of the public, benefiting from decades of steady industry repetition.
Familiarity drives consumer trust
The Yaspa Index strongly indicates that public trust is intrinsically linked to familiarity. When choosing how to pay online, security and ease of use remain the absolute top priorities for consumers. However, when faced with unfamiliar language at the point of digital checkout, this acts as a significant psychological barrier. Consequently, users tend to abandon the newer technology and default to slower, less efficient payment methods that they readily recognise.
James Neville, CEO at Yaspa, warned that this systemic communication issue must be addressed.
“The 2026 findings are a clear signal that the industry’s lack of alignment on language is holding back the potential of open banking,” Neville stated. “Consumers value the speed and security that Pay by Bank offers, but they won’t actively choose a method they don’t recognise.”
He further stressed that standardising a universal, consumer-facing term is absolutely essential for scaling the technology. By removing the cognitive burden on users to differentiate between identical payment methods, the financial industry can foster the trust necessary for true mass-market uptake.
As the industry grapples with this terminology hurdle, Yaspa continues to drive underlying innovation through its Intelligent Payments platform. The system blends artificial intelligence with real-time open banking data to provide actionable insights for merchants, including seamless affordability checks and robust fraud detection, all without interrupting the consumer’s journey.
