Direct Funds Settlement

Note: Direct Funds Settlement feature is only available to approved integrators with the Out of Flow of Funds upgrade. If you're interested in trying it out, please contact support.

🇬🇧 This feature is only available for one-off instant bank payments in the UK.

By default, our payment system collects your customers' funds into GoCardless' safeguarding account, before initiating a single payout to your nominated bank account. This process, known as "Managed Funds Settlement," is the recommended integration method as it offers several advantages. By allowing GoCardless to manage the funds, we can provide you with reconciliation services, handle refunds, and offer additional features that streamline your integration.

Direct Funds Settlement

In some cases, you may have a requirement to have each payment collected from your customers' accounts and transferred directly to your nominated bank account, instead of going through GoCardless. This is referred to as "Direct Funds Settlement." This ensures a direct and immediate transfer of funds to you, bypassing GoCardless' segregation account.

Unsupported features

The following features by GoCardless are not supported/applicable for Direct Funds Settlement:

Payouts
Refunds
Fallbacks to Direct Debit

Create a Billing Request

Use the Create a Billing Request endpoint with a payment_request to create an Instant Bank Payment.

We can use the funds_settlement attribute to specify how GoCardless handles settlement of funds from the customer.

managed: (default) Funds will be moved through GoCardless' account, batched, and paid out.
direct: Funds will be sent directly from your nominated bank account. Fees will be included in your invoice.

To create a “Direct Funds Settlement” payment, set funds_settlement to direct.

{
    "billing_requests": {
        "payment_request": {
            "currency": "GBP",
            "amount": 100,
            "description": "My first payment",
            "funds_settlement": "direct"
        }
    }
}

You can now continue to complete this Billing Request via the usual Instant Bank Pay flow.

Stay up to date

You can stay up to date with the payments via our webhooks. Once the customer has completed the payment collection steps, you should receive a payment confirmed event. The funds should now be available in your nominated bank account.

Please note you will not receive the paid_out or payout events.

Payment events

`CREATED`	The payment has been created.
`SUBMITTED`	The payment has been submitted to the banks.
`CONFIRMED`	The payment has been collected from the customer’s bank account, and should now be visible in your merchant account.
`PAID`	The payment has gone directly to your nominated account, signifying the completion of the payment process. This event will immediately follow `CONFIRMED`.

Need help?

Connect as a partner