GoCardless has completed the UK’s first live agentic account-to-account payment, using an AI-guided checkout to process a recurring donation to anti-poverty charity Trussell.
The transaction was completed within a conversation with an AI agent, which explained Trussell’s work, presented supporters with monthly donation options of £5, £10 or £15, and explained how the contributions would be used.
Once a donor selected an amount, the agent collected their bank details to establish a Direct Debit mandate, allowing the payment to be completed without the donor leaving the conversation or filling in a separate form.
The checkout was developed through the Financial Conduct Authority’s AI Live Testing programme, which allows firms to develop and test artificial intelligence applications under regulatory supervision. GoCardless joined the programme earlier this year.
The deployment comes as regulators and policymakers examine how agentic AI could interact with financial services and payment infrastructure. The UK government has identified agentic payments as an area for testing the wider use of AI across financial services, while the National Payments Vision has called for account-to-account payments to become a more significant alternative to card payments.
GoCardless provides bank payment infrastructure for more than 100,000 businesses globally, supporting Direct Debit, real-time payments and open banking across more than 30 countries. The company processes more than $130bn in payments annually and also offers AI-powered tools aimed at improving payment success rates and reducing fraud.
The agentic checkout is now live on GoCardless’ website, providing a public example of an AI-led payment flow.
GoCardless co-founder and CEO Hiroki Takeuchi said, “We’re extremely proud to have processed the UK’s first live agentic bank payment, built under FCA supervision and for a very good cause. The checkout flow is rooted in payer research: 64% of UK consumers are open to AI managing their recurring payments, provided they keep control over limits or final approval. Unlike cards, Direct Debit and Recurring Pay by Bank are specifically built for this.”
He added, “We’ve long argued that account-to-account payments are the natural foundation for agentic commerce, and this groundbreaking transaction turns that core belief into tangible proof.”
Trussell head of individual giving Christianne McKenzie also commented, “Every recurring donation helps us reach more people in need. If agentic payments make it simpler for someone to commit to giving, that’s a genuine win for everyone as we work to end hunger together. What struck us most was how natural the whole process felt; the giving process is a conversation, not just a form to fill out. That’s exactly the kind of experience we want for our donors.”
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