First Visa A2A transaction completed in the UK with partners Kroo Bank, Utilita and Tink

• Visa completes first Visa A2A transaction to demonstrate an energy bill being paid – marking a major milestone towards rolling out Visa A2A in the UK

• First market-ready solution in the UK will bring familiar card-level protections to commercial variable recurring payments (cVRPs)

• Visa research shows 60% of UK consumers say they'd likely try new ways to pay bills – showing strong appetite for innovation in everyday payments
  
  

London, 19 November 2025 – Visa has announced today that Kroo Bank, Utilita and Tink have successfully completed the first commercial variable recurring payment (cVRP) through its Visa A2A solution in the UK, marking a significant milestone in the evolution of account-to-account (A2A) payments. The transaction, made to demonstrate an energy bill being paid to Utilita, was enabled through the Visa A2A open industry model. This transaction, along with multiple subsequent transactions, showcases the readiness of the solution to upgrade the A2A payment experience, ahead of its rollout in the UK.

In the UK, consumers commonly manage recurring bills and subscriptions using Direct Debit – a system that, while longstanding, wasn’t built for a digital world. Consumers often lack visibility into how much money will be taken or when, and the process lacks the robust protections they expect online. Visa research shows that 60% of surveyed UK consumers say they would likely try a new method – if one were available.

Visa A2A is designed to address these challenges head-on, offering a modern alternative for both businesses and consumers. It provides consumers with immediate payment confirmation and greater transparency and control to managing recurring payments. Visa A2A is also built to upgrade the A2A payment experience with enhanced consumer protections, similar to those provided with card payments, and a dispute resolution mechanism, that helps people get their money back if something goes wrong. Branded with the Secured by Visa trustmark, customers can be confident that their transactions are protected and secure.

The Visa A2A model is built on the principles of open banking, and banks and industry partners are joining to introduce standards and rules for cVRPs. Visa A2A is designed to work for all participants in the payments ecosystem and is built to be extensible across all use cases and sectors, with a key focus on bills, subscriptions and low risk ecommerce. The solution can help deliver on the widely recognised need to unlock the full potential of open banking in the UK, through its strong consumer protections, robust and sustainable commercial model, and known trustmark. This in turn supports the National Payments Vision to pave the way for more innovative and secure, everyday payment experiences for consumers and businesses that increase choice and help drive economic growth.

The steps of the first transaction:

This first transaction showcases how the ecosystem works seamlessly together to enable a secure, near-instant payment experience, making it easier and faster for customers to pay their recurring utility bills with confidence.

• Payment Initiator (Tink): Tink initiated the transaction on behalf of the payer, doing a funds check and triggering the payment flow.

• Payer Bank (Kroo Bank): Kroo Bank, acting as the Payer Financial Institution, initiated the payment directly from their bank account. The payment was sent in real-time, via the UK’s Faster Payments Service.

• Visa A2A: Visa orchestrated the transaction through its Visa A2A solution, providing the operating model, the liability and dispute framework and the user experience guidelines, including the ‘Secured by Visa’ trustmark, ensuring built-in consumer protections for the payment.

• Beneficiary Merchant (Utilita): Utilita demonstrated the creation of the commercial variable recurring payment mandate from their Utilita app. The mandate is designed to enable both customer top-ups in app, and off-session utility bill payments, with Visa A2A enabling faster reconciliation and improved cash flow, while providing their customers with a secure payment method they can trust.